The Palgrave Handbook of African Political Economy [1st ed.] 9783030389215, 9783030389222

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The Palgrave Handbook of African Political Economy Edited by  Samuel Ojo Oloruntoba · Toyin Falola

Palgrave Handbooks in IPE Series Editor Timothy M. Shaw Visiting Professor University of Massachusetts Boston Boston, MA, USA Emeritus Professor University of London London, UK

Following in the footsteps of Palgrave’s market leading International Political Economy series, which has informed the IPE community for more than three decades, the ‘Palgrave Handbooks in IPE’ series provides top notch research by leading experts in the field. It welcomes Handbook proposals from around the world, comprehensively covering IPE perspectives from both the global North and the global South. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15078

Samuel Ojo Oloruntoba  •  Toyin Falola Editors

The Palgrave Handbook of African Political Economy

Editors Samuel Ojo Oloruntoba Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute University of South Africa Pretoria, South Africa

Toyin Falola Department of History University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX, USA

Institute of African Studies Carleton University Ottawa, ON, Canada

Palgrave Handbooks in IPE ISBN 978-3-030-38921-5    ISBN 978-3-030-38922-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38922-2 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © RBFried / iStockphoto This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

This Handbook is dedicated to the memory of late Professor Thandika Mkandawire for his outstanding scholarship on Development in Africa

Preface

The political economy of Africa manifests various historical and contemporary characteristics which show continuity and disjuncture. While the continuity is seeing in the way the colonial state incorporated African countries to the circuit of global capitalist system, the disjuncture is seeing in the ways in which pre-­ colonial forms of economic system have been largely neglected. The overarching influence of the global capitalist system has made it extremely difficult if not impossible to delineate the political economy of the continent from the rest of the global economic system. Except for the period of the Cold War, when African countries served as satellites for the superpowers in the East and West, the political economy of Africa has largely mirrored that of the capitalist system. In this regard, political and economic institutions have mirrored, or at best been, a caricature of advanced capitalist countries of the West. Thus, during periods of growth and expansion at the core of global capital, African countries usually witnessed some resemblance of growth. Such growth is usually the result of extraction of minerals and metals by multinational companies and exports of commodities. In much of post-independence Africa, the nature and character of politics have affected economic performance. From the late 1950s to the 1970s, postcolonial African leaders embarked on developmentalism as a means of catching up with the West. The pressure to provide better livelihood, create employment, boost productivity, build institutions, and importantly justify the struggle for political independence spurred the state to embark on massive investment in enterprises. Many of these enterprises fared well by facilitating growth through value addition, job creations, and revenue generation. However, from the late 1970s, the combination of domestic weaknesses and external shocks such as sharp increases in the price of energy, increased debt burden, and deteriorating terms of trade for traditional exports negatively affected the macroeconomic positions of the state. The resultant donor-induced reforms in form of structural adjustment programs worsened the economic conditions of the adjusting countries. vii

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Despite subscribing to the third wave of democratization in which participation by citizens is considered one of the norms, adoption of the structural adjustment programs led to loss of policy autonomy as international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund assumed central roles in critical decisions on trade, finance, and industrial policies. The involvement of these institutions in the internal affairs of African countries was part of the conditionalities for receiving development assistance or getting debt relief. Failure of governance, which manifests in primitive accumulation by state officials, bribe for contracts by multinational companies, as well as illicit financial flows worsened the political economic conditions of many African countries in the period leading to the turn of the new millennium. From the early 2000s, Africa records a modest average growth of about 4.9 percent, some reaching as high as 12 percent. International financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund note that six of the world’s ten fastest-growing economies were in sub-Saharan Africa in the tens to 2010. The growth spurt was largely fuelled by accumulation in China and other East Asian countries as well as Brazil and a resurgent Russia. Despite a sizable contribution from the services sector, the growth was mainly fuelled by export of commodities. In what has been described as jobless growth, the resultant Africa rising narrative did not lead to significant improvement in the livelihood of an average African. Structural transformation remains a challenge in Africa. It has been the case that while African economies appear to be more dynamic in recent times, there is limited evidence of increased productivity, rising employment, or improved distribution. The increasing lack of accountability in governance, acute skill shortages both in quantity and quality, fragmented political elites lacking in visions of inclusive development, the increased incidences of terrorism, conflict as in Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, Kenya, and Democratic Republic of Congo, and climate change continue to hamper modest efforts toward achieving socio-­ economic development on the continent. Yet, the African Union has continued to pursue the vision of an integrated Africa in a bid to achieve the objective of Africa that we want in 2063. The historic signing and ratification of the African Continental Free Trade Areas (AfCTA) in May 2019 represent the most significant efforts toward an integrated Africa. AfCTA has the lofty objective to enhancing structural transformation in Africa through the creation of regional value chains as a step toward increasing the participation of African countries in the global value chains. Notwithstanding the optimism that surrounds this agreement, there are many challenges that Africa needs to overcome before harnessing the potentials that an integrated economy holds for the structural transformation of the continent.

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This handbook of African Political Economy is our contribution to the unfolding dynamics of the political economy of Africa in its past and contemporary forms. The handbook is interdisciplinary in outlook with contributors from various disciplines. The uniqueness of the handbook is in its wide scope and crosscutting themes. Ottawa, ON, Canada Austin, TX, USA August 2019

Samuel Ojo Oloruntoba Toyin Falola

Contents

1 The Political Economy of Africa: Connecting the Past to the Present and Future of Development in Africa   1 Samuel Ojo Oloruntoba and Toyin Falola Part I Historical and Theoretical Foundations of African Political Economy   29 2 Left, Right and Centre: On Regrounding a Progressive Political Economy of Africa for the Twenty-First Century  31 John S. Saul 3 Four Journeys of Capital and Their Consequences for Africa  45 Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni 4 History of Racial Capitalism in Africa: Violence, Ideology, and Practice  63 Madalitso Zililo Phiri 5 African Political Economy and Its Transformation into Capitalism  83 Abdullahi Sule-Kano 6 The Political Economy of Africa  93 Ian Taylor 7 Streets and Boardrooms as Hegemonic Spaces in Shaping Political Economy in Africa 115 Dung Pam Sha

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8 Contextualizing the State Structure Requisite for Africa’s Development 141 N. Oluwafemi Mimiko Part II African Political Economy Thinkers  169 9 Kwame Nkrumah’s Political Economy of Africa 171 Jasper Abembia Ayelazuno and Lord Mawuko-Yevugah 10 Thomas Sankara and a Political Economy of Happiness 193 Amber Murrey 11 The Political Economy of Claude Ake 209 Sylvester Odion Akhaine 12 A Historical Political Economy Approach to Africa’s Economic Development: A Critique of Thandika Mkandawire’s Interests and Incentives, Ideas, and Institutions 221 Marcel Nagar 13 Amilcar Cabral, the Theory as a Weapon of the Oppressed and Africa’s Predicament Today 245 Siphamandla Zondi 14 Adebayo Adedeji: Africa’s Foremost Prophet of Regional Integration 265 Adekeye Adebajo 15 Tracing Moyo’s Intellectual Footprint on Land and Agrarian Questions in the Global South 279 Zvenyika Eckson Mugari 16 Thabo Mbeki: The Formation of a Philosopher of Liberation 295 William Mpofu 17 The Political Economy of the African Crisis Through the Lenses of Bade Onimode 315 Adewale Aderemi, Tobi Oshodi, and Samson Oyefolu

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Part III The State and the Political Economy of Development in Africa  327 18 Developmental State and the Political Economy of Local Government in Africa: A Case Study of South Africa 329 David Mohale 19 Circuits of Production and Channels of State: Pastoralists and the State in the Northern Frontier District of Kenya (1910–1958) 351 Natasha Issa Shivji 20 The Political Economy of Globalization and Employment Returns to Youth in Uganda 375 John Mary Kanyamurwa 21 Neoliberalism, Economic Crisis, and Domestic Coffee Marketing in Tanzania 399 Ambrose T. Kessy 22 Analysis of Community-Driven Human Security Interventions in Africa: The Case of the Northern Region of Ghana 413 Obodai Torto 23 A Political Economy of Regulatory Policy: The Case of ‘Illegal’ Small-Scale Mining in Ghana 433 Alex Osei-Kojo and Nathan Andrews 24 Fertilizer Policy, Governance, and Agricultural Transformation in Nigeria: A Review of Political Economy from Historical Perspectives 449 Ibukun James Olaoye, Opeyemi Eyitayo Ayinde, Matthew Olaniyi Adewumi, Ezekiel Ayinde Alani, and Raphael Olarewaju Babatunde 25 Deindustrialization and Entrepreneur Dynamism: An Assessment of the Replacement of Industrial Clusters with Event Centers in Lagos, Nigeria 467 Adebowale Ayobade

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Part IV Political Economy of Reforms in Africa  487 26 Economic Reforms in Africa: A Critical Appraisal 489 Adeoye O. Akinola 27 African Development Strategies: Whither NEPAD? 503 Rotimi Ajayi and Segun Oshewolo 28 The Global Financial Crisis and the African Economy 519 Foluso Akinsola 29 Impact of Public Debt and Governance on Economic Growth in Selected Sub-Saharan African Countries 535 Motunrayo Akinsola 30 China’s Development Finance to Africa and the Spectre of Debt Distress 557 Gorden Moyo 31 Euro-Africa Relations and Development in a Multi-Polar World: Nigeria and South Africa in Comparative Perspectives 573 Samuel Ojo Oloruntoba 32 Engendering Development: Any Lessons for Africa from the BRICS Countries? 589 Adelaja Odutola Odukoya 33 Developmental State and Development Alternatives: Lessons from Cuba 605 Ebenezer Babajide Ishola 34 The State, Resources and Developmental Prospects in Sub-Saharan Africa 621 Godwin Onuoha Part V Sectoral Approaches to Africa Political Economy  645 35 Sectoral Approaches to African Political Economy 647 Komi Tsowou and Eunice Ajambo 36 Natural Resources and African Economies: Asset or Liability? 667 Jesse Salah Ovadia

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37 Natural Resources and African Economies: Turning Liability to Asset 679 Angela Gapa 38 Natural Resource Abundance: A Hidden Drag on Africa’s Development? 699 Alexis Habiyaremye 39 The Question of Gender and Human Security in Africa’s Extractive Industries 725 Nathan Andrews and Charis Enns 40 The Political Economy of Industrialization in Africa 739 Emmanuel Owusu-Sekyere 41 Industrialization in Africa in the Era of Globalization: Challenges, Opportunities and Prospects with a Focus on Manufacturing 757 Theresa Moyo 42 A Critical Appraisal of Foreign Direct Investment in Africa: The Political Economy Approach 781 Bamidele Folabi Seteolu 43 The Political Economy of Micro-Credit in Africa 799 Kolawole Emmanuel Omomowo 44 Accounting for Choices and Consequences: Examining the Political Economy of Social Policy in Africa 817 Marion Ouma 45 Public Health and Political Economy of Development in Africa 833 Innocent Chirisa, Brilliant Mavhima, and Tariro Nyevera 46 “Afro-Eco-Entrepreneurship” Development in Africa: Utilizing Green Culture Advocacy as a Synthesis for Political-Ecological Justice Activism 851 Toby Precious T. Nwachukwu

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Part VI Security and Political Economy of Africa  875 47 Counting Lives: Colonial Institutions and Africa’s Prevailing Conflicts 877 Onah P. Thompson and Titiksha Fernandes 48 The Political Economy of Terrorism and Counter-terrorism in Twenty-First-Century Africa: A Critical Evaluation 891 Mumo Nzau 49 The Political Economy of External Intervention in Africa’s Security 911 Fritz Nganje and Enock Ndawana 50 The Political Economy of Insecurity in Africa: Focus on North East, Nigeria 927 Jobson O. Ewalefoh 51 Mediating Nation-Building in Post-colonial Africa: Addressing the Security and Development Nexus on the Continent 947 Nicasius Achu Check Part VII Regional Integration and Africa Political Economy  963 52 The Languages and Grammar of Regionalism 965 Daniel C. Bach 53 Regional Integration and Challenges of Implementation in Africa: Some Missing Gaps 977 Inocent Moyo 54 African Regional Integration and ­Pan-Africanism: The Case of African Migrants’ Welfare in Africa 991 Christal O. Spel 55 The Political Economy of State-Sponsored Repatriation of Economic Migrants in Africa1009 Israel Ekanade

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56 Southern Africa’s Regionalism Driven by Realism1027 Dawn Nagar 57 Development Without Borders? Informal Cross-­Border Trade in Africa1051 Cliff Ubba Kodero 58 The Relevance of the European Union Integration Experience to the African Union’s Integration Process1069 Gabila Nubong Index1087

Notes on Contributors

Adekeye  Adebajo  is Professor of Politics and Director of the Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation at the University of Johannesburg. He was previously the executive director of the Centre of Conflict Resolution (CCR) at the University of Cape Town. He obtained BSc in Political Science from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria; an MA from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts university in the US; and an MPhil and a DPhil from St. Antony’s College, Oxford university. He has written extensively on conflicts and peacebuilding in Africa. Adewale  Aderemi  is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science, Lagos State University. His research area is in political economy of development in Africa. He has published in several journals and contributed to many books. Matthew Olaniyi Adewumi  is a professor at the Department of Agricultural Economics and Farm Management at the University of Ilorin, Nigeria. Eunice Ajambo  is an Economic affairs officer with the Macroeconomic Policy Division of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She most recently served in the same position with the office for ECOSOC support and co-ordination at UN headquarters in New  York, where she evaluated and reported on progress of the implementation of the quadrennial policy review (QCPR), the primary policy instrument for defining the United Nations activities for development. Rotimi  Ajayi  is Professor of Political Science at the Federal University of Lokoja, Kogi State, Nigeria. He was the pioneer vice chancellor of Landmark University, Omu-Aran, Kwara State, Nigeria. Sylvester  Odion  Akhaine  is Associate Professor of Political Science at the Department of Political Science, Lagos State University, Nigeria. He is also the chairman of the Board of Trustees at the Centre for Constitutionalism and Demilitarisation. Akhaine’s research interest covers comparative politics and xix

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political economy, and his works have been published in Review of African Political Economy, African Affairs, Journal of Asians and Africans studies, among others. He is a scholar activist who is devoted to the service of mankind. Adeoye  O.  Akinola  is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of Public Administration, University of Zululand, South Africa. He is the author of Globalization, Democracy and Oil Sector Reform in Nigeria, New  York (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). Foluso Akinsola  is a senior lecturer at the Department of Economics, Caleb University, Imeko, Lagos, Nigeria. He was previously a lecturer at the Department of Economics, University of Lagos, Nigeria. He obtained PhD in Economics from Stellenbosch University and was a post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Economics, University of South Africa from 2016 to 2018. Motunrayo Akinsola  is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Economics, University of South Africa. Ezekiel Ayinde Alani  teaches at the Department of Agricultural Economics, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomosho, Nigeria. His research focus is environmental economics. Nathan  Andrews obtained PhD in Political Science at the University of Alberta, having obtained his Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from the University of Ghana and a Master of Arts from Brock University. He is a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow and adjunct assistant professor at Queen’s University. Andrews is conducting research that focuses on the international political economy of natural resources in Africa, with a focus on the socio-political dynamics of oil and gas extraction in Ghana. Jasper Abembia Ayelazuno  obtained PhD in Politics from York University, Toronto, Canada. He works with the Department of Communication, Innovation and Technology, University of Development Studies, Ghana. Jasper does research in political economy, comparative politics, and comparative democratization. Opeyemi  Eyitayo  Ayinde  is an associate professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Ilorin and a senior research associate at the South African Research Chair in Innovation and Technology, Tshwane University of Technology, South Africa. Adebowale Ayobade  is a senior lecturer at the University of Lagos, Nigeria. She specializes in social work, industrial sociology, gender, entrepreneurship, and indigenous studies. Raphael Olarewaju Babatunde  holds a First-Class Honours and Master of Science degree in Agricultural Economics from the University of Ilorin, Nigeria. In 2005, he was awarded the German Academic Exchange services (DAAD) fellowship for doctoral studies, and he obtained his PhD in Agricultural

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Economics and Social Sciences from the University of Hoffenheim, Stuggart, Germany, in 2009. Daniel  C.  Bach  was director of Research Emeritus of the CNRS (National Centre for Scientific Research) at the Centre Emile Durkheim, University of Bordeaux. He holds the Diplôme d’Habiliation à Diriger des Recherches (Bordeaux I University), a DPhil from Oxford University, an MA from Panthéon-Sorbonne University, and a BA from the Institut d’etudes Politiques, Grenoble University. He has taught at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ife-Ife (Nigeria), the University of Montréal, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE) in Lisbon, the University of Coimbra, Boston University, Ritsumeikan University, the University of Kobe, and the LUISS Guido Carli, Rome. He is an adjunct professor at University of Lisbon and HEC, Paris and Benguerir. He has written articles on Nigerian federalism, the foreign policies of Nigeria and South Africa, neopatrimonialism and the developmental state, regional organizations and regionalization processes in Africa, as well as on Africa in international relations. His latest book Regionalism in Africa: Genealogies, Institutions and Trans-state Networks received the 2019 Presidential Award of the Association of Borderland Studies. Daniel Bach is also the series editor of the Routledge Studies in African Politics and international relations. Nicasius Achu Check  is a research specialist at the African Institute of South Africa in Human Sciences Research Council, South Africa. His research interest is in the area of conflicts in Africa. Innocent  Chirisa is a professor at the Department of Rural and Urban Planning at the University of Zimbabwe. He is the Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Social Science at the University of Zimbabwe and a research fellow at the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, at the University of Free State, South Africa. Israel  Ekanade  is a doctoral student at the Department of Development Studies at the University of Venda, South Africa. Charis Enns  is Lecturer in International Development in the Department of Geography at the University of Sheffield. She is also an affiliated researcher at the Geography African Institute at Aga Khan University. Jobson  O.  Ewalefoh is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Development Studies, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa. Toyin Falola  holds the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossier Chair in Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin, where he has been teaching since 1991. His research and publications have covered a vast intellectual terrain relating to Africa and the diaspora. These include the ongoing dynamic and dialectic between the power of culture and the culture of power in African states; the Middle Passage; the human cost of African migrations; HIV and AIDS in ­modern Africa; slavery and colonialism in Africa; entrepreneurial development

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and economic power in Africa and the African Diaspora; and the impacts of globalization and urbanization on African societies. Titiksha Fernandes  holds a Master’s degree at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, and is a doctoral candidate at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Angela  Gapa holds MA and PhD in International Relations (Florida International University). She is a faculty member at California State University’s International Relations Department. Alexis Habiyaremye  works at the Economic Performance and Development, Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC). Alexis does research in business economics, development economics, and econometrics. Ebenezer Babajide Ishola  is an assistant lecturer and doctoral student in the Department of Political Science, University of Lagos, Nigeria. John  Mary  Kanyamurwa  is a senior lecturer in the Political Science and Public Administration Department, Kyambogo University, Kampala, Uganda. Ambrose  T.  Kessy  is a lecturer in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Brilliant  Mavhima  holds a bachelor’s degree in Rural and Urban Planning and is a master’s student at the University of Zimbabwe, studying rural and urban planning. His focus is in urban design. Lord Mawuko-Yevugah  is a senior lecturer in Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration. He is the author of Reinventing Development: Aid Reform and Technologies of Governance in Ghana (2016). N.  Oluwafemi  Mimiko is Professor of International Relations and Comparative Political Economy at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. He was formerly the vice chancellor of Adekinle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Ondo State, Nigeria. He taught for the Spring Semester of 2004, at the Department of Social Sciences, United States Military Academy, West Point, NY, USA, as a Fulbright Scholar. David  Mohale  holds a PhD in the field of Development Studies from the University of South Africa. Prior to his doctoral studies, he obtained masters in the field of Public Policy from Wits University and BA degree (Cum laude) from Central University of Technology. He also holds various certificates ranging from leadership to local government planning processes, systems, and structures. Gorden  Moyo is a former minister of State Enterprises and Parastals in Zimbabwe. He is a policy advisor to the Public Policy and Research Institute of Zimbabwe. He holds a PhD in African Leadership Development from the National University of Science and Technology (Zimbabwe) and a Master of Arts degree in Peace Studies from the University of Bradford (UK).

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Inocent  Moyo  is a human geographer with deep interest in the interface between people and the environment, particularly the broader field of political geography, political economy, political ecology, migration, regional development, globalization and transnationalism, borderlands, and urban geography among others. Theresa  Moyo  is a professor in the Master of Development Planning and Management Programme at the Teraflop Graduate School of Leadership (TGSL), appointed in 2004; Professor Moyo is one of the longest serving members of the school. William Mpofu  is a senior researcher at Wits Centre for Diversity Studies, the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. Zvenyika  Eckson  Mugari  is a lecturer at the Midlands State University in Gweru, Zimbabwe. Amber  Murrey  teaches at the School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, where she obtained a PhD in Geography and the Environment. As a decolonial scholar, her research is on transformations of life and place amidst structural, development. and colonial violence(s); the dynamic of social and political resistance and co-operations of that resistance by state and cooperate actors; and hegemonic and counterhegemonic intellectual practices and knowledge paradigms. She is the editor of A Certain Amount of Madness: The Life, Politics and Legacies of Thomas Sankara, 2018. Dawn  Nagar holds DPhil in International Relations and teaches in the Department of Politics, University of Johannesburg. She was formerly senior researcher at the Centre for Conflicts Resolution, Cape Town, South Africa. Marcel  Nagar holds DPhil in Politics from the Department of Politics, University of Johannesburg. Her research interest is in developmental states and development in Africa. Enock  Ndawana  is a lecturer at the Department of History, University of Zimbabwe. Sabelo  J.  Ndlovu-Gatsheni  is Professor of Economic History and head of the Change Unit in the office of the Principal and Vice Chancellor, University of South Africa. He was the former head of Archie Mafeje Research Institute at University of South Africa. He is one of the leading lights of decolonial thoughts in Africa and founder of the African Decoloniality Network, South Africa. Fritz Nganje  is a senior researcher at the Department of Politics, University of Johannesburg, South Africa. Gabila Nubong  is a senior lecturer at the School of Economics, North West University, Mafikeng, South Africa. His research interests are regional integration and Euro-African relations.

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Toby  Precious  T.  Nwachukwu is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute (TMALI), University of South Africa, Pretoria. He is an associate member of the Industrial Engineering and Operational Management (IEOM); a member of the International Third Sector Research, African Forum (ISTR), the South African Council of Social Services Professionals (SACSSP), among others. His areas of specialty are ethical-­ecology, ethics in entrepreneurship development, and social justice ethical advocacy. He has interest in trans-disciplinary research within the humanities and social sciences. Tariro  Nyevera  is a graduate student in Rural and Urban Planning at the University of Zimbabwe. He holds a BSc degree in Rural and Urban Planning from University of Zimbabwe. Mumo  Nzau  is Fulbright Scholar holding an MA and a PhD in Political Science from the State University of New  York at Buffalo, United States of America. He is a lecturer at the Institute of Diplomacy and International Studies at the University of Nairobi. Adelaja Odutola Odukoya  is an associate professor and head of Department of Political Science, University of Lagos, Nigeria. He was previously a visiting scholar to York University in Canada. He has published in journals and edited books. Ibukun  James  Olaoye  is a PhD student at the Department of Agricultural Economics at University of Ilorin. His research interests focus on agricultural policy, food systems, and innovation and sustainable economic development. Samuel Ojo Oloruntoba  is Associate Professor and the Coordinator of the Research Cluster on Innovation and Developmental Regionalism at the Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa. He is also a visiting scholar at the Institute of African Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. He obtained his PhD in Political Science with specialization in International Political Economy of Trade from the University of Lagos, Nigeria, where he was a tenured faculty member. He was previously a visiting scholar at the Program of African Studies, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, and a fellow of Brown International Advanced Research Institute, Brown University, Rhode Island, United States of America. His research interests include regional integration and development in Africa, resource governance, global governance. Oloruntoba is the author of Regionalism and Integration in Africa: EU-ACP Economic Partnership Agreements and Euro-Nigeria Relations, published by Palgrave, New  York, 2016. He is also the co-editor along with Toyin Falola of The Palgrave Handbook of African Politics, Governance and Development, Palgrave, New  York, 2018. He is a rated researcher by the National Research Foundation of South Africa.

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Kolawole Emmanuel Omomowo  teaches at University of Namibia, Namibia. He completed his PhD degree at the University of Western Cape, South Africa, in September 2015. His research interests are in the areas of the intersection between micro-credit (institutions and consumers), social reproduction, social policy, and poverty discourses. How the structure of political economy affects productive, individual, and collective consumptions about social well-being is imperative to how he interrogates these research areas. Godwin Onuoha  is an adjunct professor at the Department of Archaeology, Princeton University, United States of America. He was formerly an African research fellow in the Democracy, Governance and Service Delivery Programme of the Human Science Research Council, Pretoria, South Africa. He holds a BA in History and an MSc in Political Science, both from the University of Lagos, Nigeria, and obtained MA in Political Science at the Central European University, Hungary, and a PhD in Anthropology from the Martin Luther University, Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. Alex  Osei-Kojo holds BA in Political Science and MPhil in Public Administration from the University of Ghana. He also holds a diploma in Human Resources Management from the Institute of Commercial Management, UK. Segun  Oshewolo  is a lecturer in the Department of Political Science and International Relations, Landmark University, Omu-Aran. He obtained BSc and MSc degrees in Political Science from University of Ilorin, where he is a doctoral candidate. His papers have appeared in several local and international journals. His area of specialization is international relations. Tobi  Oshodi is a lecturer at the Lagos State University, Lagos, Nigeria. Broadly interested in Africa’s development question, his research often interrogates Africa-China relations; the mobilization of youth in multi-ethnic societies; and the role, challenges, and responses of the African University. Marion  Ouma  is a researcher at the University of South Africa, where she obtained PhD in Social Policy. Jesse  Salah  Ovadia is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Windsor, Canada. Previously, he was Lecturer in International Political Economy at Newcastle University in the UK. He holds a PhD and an MA in Political Science from York University (Canada) and a BA (Hons) in Development Studies and Politics from Queen’s University (Canada). Emmanuel  Owusu-Sekyere  is a chief research specialist responsible for the sustainable development theme at the Africa Institute of South Africa in the Human Science Research Council (HSRC). He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Pretoria; a master’s degree in Economics Management and Policy from Strathclyde University, Glasgow Scotland, UK; and an honours degree in Economics and Management from the University of Ghana.

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Samson Oyefolu  teaches at the Department of Political Science, Lagos State University, Lagos. Madalitso  Zililo  Phiri  is a doctoral candidate, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa. John S. Saul  is a Canadian political economist and activist whose work has focused on the liberation struggles of southern Africa, from the 1960s to the present. Saul is Professor Emeritus of Politics at York University in Toronto. He has also taught at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, alongside activist-academics such as Giovanni Arrighi (with whom he wrote Essays on the Political Economy of Africa) and Walter Rodney; at the University of Eduardo Mondlane in Maputo, Mozambique, alongside activist-­ academics such as Ruth First; and at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in South Africa. Bamidele Folabi Seteolu  is a senior lecturer in the Department of Political Science, Lagos State University, Ojo, Lagos, Nigeria. He specializes in political economy of development, democracy, and civil society. Dung Pam Sha  is a professor at the University of Jos, Nigeria. He worked with the military of lands and survey before taking up part-time lecturer position at the University of Jos in 1980. He has published locally and internationally. He has consulted for the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) among several international agencies. Professor Sha is the director of Office of Research and Development of the University of Jos. Natasha  Issa  Shivji  is a lecturer at the History Department, University of Dodoma, Tanzania. She holds a PhD in African History from New  York University. Her work focuses on historicizing state formation and the political economic history of Islam on the East African coast. Christal  O.  Spel  was formerly a post-doctoral fellow at the University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa. She is a doctoral student at the University of South Africa. Her Research is on migrants and remittances. Abdullahi  Sule-Kano  is Professor of Political Economy, Bayero University, Kano. He was former National President Academic Staff Union of Universities, Nigeria. Ian  Taylor is Professor of International Relations and African Political Economy at University of St Andrews and also chair professor in the School of International Studies, Renmin, University of China. He has published more than 100 articles and book chapters. Onah  P.  Thompson is a PhD student in the Public Policy Program at University of North Carolina, Charlotte, North Carolina, United States of America. His research focuses on environment and security policies.

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Obodai Torto  is a research fellow in the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon. He holds a doctorate degree in Sociology from the University of Waterloo, Canada, and an MPhil degree in Development Studies, University of Cambridge. Furthermore, he is an external examiner at the Ghana Armed Forces Command and Staff College. Torto’s main research interests are critical conflict and security studies, critical development studies, international political economy, and forced displacement. Additionally, he teaches the following graduate courses: political economy of African development, international security and migration, contemporary issues in forced migration, issues of development in Africa, social science foundations for public policy, qualitative methods for public policy, and public policy development and analysis. Komi Tsowou  is Economic Affairs Officer at the African Trade Policy Centre, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Cliff Ubba Kodero  is a PhD/MA degree International Relations student at Florida International University’s Steven Green School of International and Public Affairs in August 2016. His research focuses on regional integration in the East African community. Siphamandla  Zondi  holds a doctorate degree in History from Cambridge University. He is the head of Department of Political Science, University of Pretoria, South Africa. He is also an associate lecturer at the Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute, University of South Africa.

List of Figures

Fig. 7.1 Fig. 7.2 Fig. 7.3 Fig. 15.1 Fig. 20.1 Fig. 23.1 Fig. 24.1 Fig. 24.2 Fig. 24.3 Fig. 25.1 Fig. 28.1 Fig. 28.2 Fig. 28.3 Fig. 29.1 Fig. 29.2

Government, private, and citizens relationship in a political system. (Adapted from Easton 1965) 120 Government and private sector relationship in a political system. (Adapted from Miliband on capitalist state, 1969) 120 State capture 121 An indication of the complex web of places, organizations, and people who made up Moyo’s intellectual community as well as his intellectual output 280 Conceptual framework (The influences investigated in this study are conceptualized as shown in the figure) 380 A game-theoretic model of illegal mining in Ghana. (GB Government B, GA Government A, C Cooperate, DC Do not cooperate)441 Fertilizer consumption (Qty) in Nigeria and South Africa. (Source: http://dataportal.opendataforafrica.org/bbkawjf/afdb-socioeconomic-database-1960-2019?country=1000590-nigeria)452 Cereal yield (kg per hectare). (Source: http://dataportal. opendataforafrica.org/bbkawjf/afdb-socio-economic-database-196 0-2019?country=1000590-nigeria)452 Government effectiveness for selected African countries. (Source: Authors’ construct using the World Bank, Worldwide Governance Indicators online database [accessed October 2018]) 460 Conceptual Framework. (Source: Author, 2018) 475 Bank lending to the private sector for Asian countries. (Source: Adapted from Corsetti 1998: 62) 523 The US home price index. (Source: S&P Home Price Indices Economic Indicators 2012) 525 ABS collateralized debt obligation (1 bp = 0.01%). (Source: Adapted from Hull (2010: 183)) 526 Gross government debt-to-GDP ratio in Africa, 2008–2017. (Source: AfDB 2019, pp. 19) 538 Human Development Index (HDI) for African countries with debt to GDP of above 100% 539 xxix

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List of Figures

Fig. 35.1 Sectoral value added (% GDP) in Africa, 1980–2016. (Source: Authors based on data from UNCTADstat. Accessed in December 2018) 648 Fig. 35.2 Manufacturing value added and its contribution to GDP in Africa, 1995–2016. (Source: Authors based on data from UNIDO database)650 Fig. 35.3 Cocoa GVCs: value-added content of selected countries exports (based on average values for 2015–2017). (Data for Ghana in Figs. 35.2 and 35.3 relates to average values for 2016–2017 as 2015 data was not available in the ITC Trade map at the time this database was accessed; Source: Authors based on data from ITC Trade map) 651 Fig. 35.4 Primary commodities exports as shares of GDP and total merchandise exports in different regions (average values, 1995–2015). (Source: Authors based on data from UNCTADstat) 652 Fig. 35.5 Mapping of stakeholders in a sector. (Source: Moncrieffe and Luttrell 2005) 656 Fig. 40.1 Value added per sector as a percentage to GDP growth (1990–2014). (Source: World Development Indicators of the World Bank) 741 Fig. 40.2 Africa in 2016 743 Fig. 41.1 Share of medium and high technology MVA in total MVA and share of MVA in GDP for selected countries (2013) percent 764 Fig. 43.1 Dimensions and consequences of micro-credit consumption for quality of social reproduction (Omomowo 2015) 810 Fig. 47.1 Graphs of marginal effect of colonial heritage on the level of a country’s ethnic diversity 886 Fig. 47.2 Total fatalities and conflict incidences in British and French colonies of sub-­Sahara Africa (1997–2016). (Source: ACLED) 887

List of Tables

Table 6.1 Table 7.1 Table 7.2 Table 7.3 Table 7.4 Table 7.5 Table 7.6 Table 7.7 Table 7.8 Table 7.9 Table 13.1 Table 18.1 Table 20.1 Table 20.2 Table 20.3 Table 20.4 Table 20.5 Table 20.6 Table 20.7 Table 23.1 Table 24.1

GDP growth rate and adjusted net savings in Africa: 2000 and 2008 (author’s calculation) 108 Labour market situation and outlook in Sub-Saharan Africa 2014 (%) 125 Labour market situation and outlook in sub-Saharan Africa 2014 (%) 126 Youth unemployment as of 2010 127 Unemployment rates in Nigeria 1995–2014 127 Global Corruption Perceptions Index 2015 (showing mostly African countries) 129 Human Development Index 2014 showing African countries 130 Nigeria: Corruption perception rankings, 2005–2013 131 African countries that have experienced state-driven reforms 133 African countries that have experienced regime change 134 Typology of Cabralian two struggles thesis 256 Breakdown of study respondents 341 Youth description of political reforms integrating Uganda into the global system 383 Youth description of the Ugandan state’s capacity to create employment385 Description of employment opportunities and globalization returns for the youth 387 Linear regression coefficients for political reforms and employment returns388 Sobel test for the significance of mediation effect of political reforms on employment 389 Youth analysis of economic reforms integrating Uganda in the global system 391 Linear regression coefficients for state capacity, economic reforms, and nature of employment returns from globalization 392 Budget of the MMIP project 439 Summary statistics of the six governance indicators for Nigeria 459

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List of Tables

Table 25.1 Distribution of industrial clusters and the number of firms in Lagos State 472 Table 35.1 Export product concentration and diversification indices in African countries, 1995 and 2015 653 Table 35.2 Export product concentration and diversification indices in African countries, 1995 and 2015 654 Table 35.3 Economic importance of mining in Botswana 658 Table 35.4 Economic importance of ­commodities in Cameroon: selected indictors659 Table 35.5 An application of sector-level political economy analysis 661 Table 38.1 Civil wars linked to natural resource wealth in Africa 1990–present 705 Table 38.2 Extent of dependence on primary commodities and resource curse factors in select African countries 708 Table 38.3 Primary commodity price indices 2007–2017 (2005 index =100, in terms of USD) 710 Table 38.4 LSE-listed mining and oil companies incorporated in tax havens with operations in Africa 712 Table 40.1 Socio-economic indicators in Africa. A comparison with other developing regions 750 Table 40.2 Africa Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) performance. A comparison with other developing regions 750 Table 40.3 Doing business indicators in Africa. A comparison with other developing regions 751 Table 41.1 Share of MVA in GDP, 2010–2015 (percent) 762 Table 41.2 Manufactured exports per capita 2010–2015 (current $) 763 Table 41.3 Impact of countries on world manufacturing (percent) 2010–2015764 Table 41.4 Medium and high technology manufacturing exports share in total manufacturing exports, 2010–2015 (percent) 764 Table 41.5 World manufacturing exports by region 1996–2015 (current $, billions) 765 Table 41.6 Some comparative statistics on manufacturing competitiveness: Selected African countries relative to selected industrialised countries in 2015 765 Table 41.7 Share of manufacturing value added by industry group and industrialisation level, 2005, 2010 and 2015 (percent) 766 Table 47.1 Negative binomial regression analysis predicting the incidence rate ratio (IRR) of conflict and fatalities in sub-Saharan Africa 885 Table 50.1 Corruption, state failure and insecurity perception index 936 Table 50.2 Economic activities affected by insurgents in the North East 939 Table 51.1 South Sudan’s HDI trends based on consistent time series data 952 Table 51.2 Botswana’s HDI trends based on consistent time series data 953 Table 51.3 DRC’s HDI trends based on consistent time series data 953 Table 51.4 Gabon’s HDI trends based on consistent time series data 954 Table 51.5 Ghana’s HDI trends based on consistent time series data 955 Table 51.6 Mali’s HDI trends based on consistent time series data 955

CHAPTER 1

The Political Economy of Africa: Connecting the Past to the Present and Future of Development in Africa Samuel Ojo Oloruntoba and Toyin Falola

Is there an African Political Economy? As a field of study, African Political Economy has not been developed conceptually, theoretically, or analytically. It suffers from the same fate as some other disciplines and fields of study in Africa in which knowledge production has been essentially anchored in theories and concepts from elsewhere. At the global level, the political economy lost its place in the pantheon of intellectual discourses and as a focus of study in the post-Keynesian era. As Robinson (2010: 5) argues, ‘diverse Fordist-Keynesian models of national corporate capitalism spread throughout the twentieth century from the cores of the world capitalist system to the former colonial domains in Latin America, Africa, and Asia’. These models were geared toward redistribution, welfarism, and the general empowerment of workers, with strong labor unions to the fore. In Africa in particular, developmentalism placed high on the agenda of early post-colonial leaders: first as a means of securing their legitimacy, then as a means of justifying their struggle for independence from the colonialists and building mass support base through reproduction of popular classes (Mkandawire 1998; Robinson 2010). S. O. Oloruntoba (*) Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa Institute of African Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada T. Falola Department of History, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 S. O. Oloruntoba, T. Falola (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of African Political Economy, Palgrave Handbooks in IPE, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38922-2_1

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Following the Keynesian principle of boosting aggregate demand and increased state involvement in ensuring full employment, the postwar global economic structure of accumulation brought about prosperity and welfare for many—at both the core and periphery of global capitalism. However, this ‘golden era’ of capitalism did not last, in part, because of several contradictions within the national and global economic arrangements—not least the power of labor unions to negotiate higher wages, state regulation of capital, and the shock from the expected rise in interest rate by the Federal Reserve of the United States of America (Gilpin 2001; Bracking and Harrison 2003). Robinson (2010: 5–6) provides a deeper narrative of the forces that led to the onslaught in the Post-Fordist regime of accumulation and its redistributive tendencies. He notes that: The expansion of collective rights, the institutionalization of Keynesian-Fordist class compromise, and the prevailing norms of a ‘moral economy’ that assumed capital and state reciprocities with labour and citizens and an ethical obligation to minimal social reproduction—all this burdened capital with social rigidities that had to be reversed for a new phase of capitalist growth. Capital and its political representatives and organic intellectuals in the core countries organized a broad offensive—economic, political, ideological, military—that was symbolically spearheaded by the Reagan-Thatcher alliance.

This alliance brought about the ascendancy and hegemony of market ideals under the rubric of neoliberalism (Harvey 2007). At the intellectual level, development study was radically transformed from its interdisciplinary nature to one focused on firm-level analysis with quantification and mathematical precision brought to the fore. Fine (2009) provides an historical overview of how Economics became disentangled from other disciplines and isolated from other social sciences in ways that ensured that both its theory and resultant policies have continued to advance profit maximization at the firm and individual levels with scant regard for the society. Despite warnings from Polanyi (1957) that the idea of a perfect market is, at best, a utopia, neoliberal economic theorists continue to justify inequality as an essential part of the modern economy (Hayek 1960). As we explain later in the chapter, the international financial institutions (IFIs), especially the World Bank, became the knowledge bank: a place where the ideals of market fundamentalism are propagated and exported to developing countries of the world. These ideals have had devastating consequences on the socio-economic conditions of these countries: a fact that the Bank and the Fund have recently acknowledged (World Bank 2018). The contradictions of global capitalism have ensured that crises are inevitable (Harvey 2016; Oloruntoba 2016; Stiglitz 2010). The late-1970s global commodity crisis, the Asian financial crisis of 1988, and the global financial crisis of 2008–2009 are just a few recent crises (Soros 1998; Oloruntoba 2016). Strident critiques of Economics from the Left and Right have ensured a return to Global Political Economy or International Political Economy as a sub-discipline in Political Science and International Relations. Increasingly, the

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need for economics to be rooted in society has become more nuanced. Given the peripheral position of Africa in the global capitalist system and the prevalence of economistic thinking in universities, think tanks, and policy circles, an African Political Economy as a field of study is both necessary and compelling for a proper understanding of the historical and contemporary forces and forms of interaction and production that shaped and continue to shape the development trajectory in Africa. The question of whether there is an African Political Economy set in the context of integrating Africa into the global circuit of capital, which began with the transatlantic slave trade over five centuries ago. Although parts of Africa had related with other regions of the world, such as Asia, Europe, and the Middle East through trade, it was the transatlantic slave trade that marked the turning point in the relations between the continent and other parts of the world in its current subordinated form (Rodney 1981). Other forms of relations, such as imperialism and colonialism, successfully subordinated the continent to other regions in a global capitalist system defined by an asymmetry of power and an unequal international division of labor (Hoogvelt 2005, 2001). The Political Economy of Africa manifests various characteristics that link the past with the present in a continuum that has affected its diversification, development, sophistication, domestication, and inclusiveness. Located and ensconced within its pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial structures, African Political Economy has continued to operate informally and formally. Unlike other regions of the world where the intersection of politics and economy has been informed by indigenous approaches and practices, the formal aspects of African Political Economy have, to a very significant extent, been defined by exogenous knowledge base that underpins theoretical frameworks and policies (Ake 1979). Scholars have provided both historical and analytical accounts of how the triple heritage of the slave trade, colonialism, and post-colonialism have shaped the structure, nature, and contour of the political economy of Africa (Taiwo 2010; Rodney 1981; Ake 1981). In relation to the overarching influence of transatlantic slave trade on Africa, for instance, Walter Rodney poignantly argues that in the 400 years that the trade lasted, nearly 12 million Africans were carted as commodities to the New World. The massive dislocation of such large numbers of people robbed Africa of its able-bodied men and women. As Olufemi Taiwo (2017) argues in his TED Talk, many of the Africans forcefully carted away from their land of birth included inventors, artists, agronomists, and other professionals. In addition to the violence that undergirded both trans-Saharan and transatlantic slave trade turned communities against one another, created distrust, and undermined the peaceful environment and collective efforts needed to innovate, plan, and achieve development. Ake (1981) locates the Political Economy of Africa within the extractive and disruptive logic that underpinned colonialism. In their bid to build the war-­ destroyed metropolitan economies through the creation of access to raw materials, the colonialists changed the mode of production as well as social relations

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of production in Africa through the introduction of wage economy and cash crop farming. In this process, Africans were forced to move from rural areas to urban areas in search of wage labor. To achieve their extractive objectives, infrastructures such as railroads were designed and constructed to link only the sources of raw materials to ports of exports. Bracking and Harrison (2003: 5) put the colonial state and its mechanism of accumulation in Africa more sharply: Colonial states established the political conduits through which African societies engaged with the global political economy. In many ways, the construction can be seen as a project of simplification: reducing complex social forms to basic national templates: the ‘zoning’ of agricultural production, the reduction of varied cultures of ownership and norms of trade to ‘chieftaincy’ and the regulation of marketing boards; and the construction of local and long-distance trade networks to the road and rail links from region to ports, capital city, and customs office. ...[T]he colonial project might not have completed its immanent desires to produce self-contained national economies malleable to the designs of international capital, but it did mark a profound historical transition, which defined the historical possibilities of independence.

Decolonial thinkers have argued that despite the end of colonialism at the political level, a global matrix of power has ensured the continuity of the colonial patterns of exploitation and extraction in Africa (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2018, 2013; Grosfoguel 2007). These scholars argue that the globalization processes ensconced in neoliberal market ideas, promoted under the superintendent roles of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization, have ensured further subordination of African economies to the logic of global capital. In this regard, the IMF and the World Bank have dutifully assumed the role of high priests of development discourses and policies over most parts of Africa. Perhaps with few exceptions, these institutions have offices in the Presidencies or Ministries of Finance of African countries, where they offer policy advice and instruction to bureaucrats on the best way to administer the economies. As Stiglitz (2002) argues, the consultations that the Bank and the Fund staff carry out in developing countries are usually bereft of the local realities and experiences of the poor people. Rather, such consultations usually take place in five-star hotels where officials of the Ministry of Finance or Central Banks meet with the representatives of the Bretton Woods institutions. He further notes that the Fund changed its founding mandate of compelling developing countries to pursue expansionary policies, which can boost aggregate demand in postwar Europe, to adopting contractionary policies in a bid to operate along market fundamentalist principles (Zach-Williams and Mohan 2007). Various theoretical approaches have been advanced to examine the political economy of Africa. These can be categorized into liberal and critical theories (Nasong’o 2018). Classical and neoclassical theories interpret African economic conditions in terms of the inability of the state in Africa to mobilize capi-

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tal at the national level. Thus, they argue that foreign direct investment (FDI) and official aid are required to help these countries finance infrastructure. In relation to trade, neoclassical theories also argue that given the abundance of raw materials in Africa, the principle of comparative advantage in which countries specialize on exports that have comparative cost advantage is the right one to apply in Africa. This is because exports of raw commodities are exported in return for the necessity of earning foreign exchange earnings. From the late 1970s through to the present, these neoliberal economy theories have been the dominant framework analysis of economic development in Africa and other developing regions of the world. The theory emanated from the emergence of conservative governments in the United States, Britain, and Germany in the late 1970s to early 1980s. Harvey (2007) argues that neoliberalism was not just an economic doctrine, it was both a political ideology and an intellectual adventure. Scholars like Hayek (1960) and Bhagwati (2004), among others, see an open international economic system ruled by the market as the best way to achieving sustainable growth. The New Political Economy and Public Choice approaches are also located within the logic of market agency and rolling back the state. Proponents of this theory argue that the public officials use the state to secure rent in their interests rather than for public good (see Soludo and Ogbu 2004 for a critique of this theory). Critical theories such as Dependency, Development, and Underdevelopment, World Systems, and Marxian class analysis object to the economistic determinism of neoclassical and neoliberal theories. Rather, they argue that the economic conditions in Africa as well as other regions of the world are historically determined and are reflective of the unequal international division of labor, in which the West occupies a position of power and domination over other regions of the world through international financial institutions that it created and control. Scholars like Frank (1967) and Onimode (1988) argue that the dependent nature of developing countries and the poor state of their economies are products of centuries of unequal relations with the West. They pointed out the deleterious effects of colonialism and post-colonialism as forces that continue to shape the economic fortunes of Africa and other developing regions of the world. In the past half of a century, there has been oscillation between the role of the state and the market in the economy. The first decades of independence saw a massive engagement of the state in the establishment of state-owned enterprises and the establishment of public institutions with record growth in the economy to match. Following the import substitution industrialization (ISI) strategy of the 1960s, post-colonial states such as Nigeria, Ghana, and the Ivory Coast embarked on massive industrialization, especially of the low-to-­ medium technology-based type. However, due to a combination of several factors, including corruption in the awarding of import licensing and increased disarticulation in the domestic economies of the countries, the ISI failed to be sustainable (Soludo and Ogbu 2004). The commodity crisis of the 1970s, the sharp increase in interest rate by the Federal Reserves of the United States, as

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well as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) crisis led to huge debt burden for many countries in Africa (Bracking and Harrison 2003). The ensuing crisis necessitated the intervention of the international financial institutions (IFIs): the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Following the Berg Report of 1981, the IFIs saw the state as the hindrance to the proper functioning of the economy. Consequently, they advocated for the rolling back of the state. As the debt crisis increased and African countries increasingly depended on these institutions for loans, rolling back the state became a required condition. Consequently, these countries were forced to embark on various market-oriented reforms such as privatization of public enterprises, deregulation of key sectors of the economy, liberalization of trade and finance regime, as well as devaluation of currency (Oloruntoba and Falola 2018). Hence, virtually, all the countries on the continent have embarked on one form of privatization program or the other as a means of spurring efficiency, productivity, and diversification. Under the various reforms that African states embarked on, the market was held aloft as the most important agent for allocation of economic resources. Despite this, the state has continued to play one role or the other in either promoting or protecting business enterprises. In other words, the role of the state in African economies continues to evolve and result in different outcomes. In contrast to the market-induced delegitimization of the state in Africa, leading capitalist countries have often used the state not just to negotiate for contracts in peripheral states but also to bail out companies using taxpayers’ money. As one can see from the activities of President Obama in the aftermath of the 2008–2009 financial crisis in the United States, the so-called too-big-to-fail companies received bailouts that ran into billions of dollars (Oloruntoba 2016; Stiglitz 2010). The democratization process that followed in the wake of the neoliberal regime of accumulation has mainly served to advance the interests of the market and members of the Transnational Capitalist Class—TCC (Robinson 2010; Ake 2000). As the twentieth century drew to a close, scholars like Fukuyama (1992) prematurely declared the end of history because of the triumph of capitalism over communism and the massive force of the third wave of democracy over authoritarian regimes. However, barely three decades into this euphoria, questions are being raised about the deliverables of democracy in enhancing fostering inclusive development. While civil rights might have increased in several countries that embraced the third wave, development has become unduly elusive. Leading scholars of democracy and development have begun to interrogate their previous positions about the Eldorado democracy promised. Joseph (2016), Fukuyama (2013), and Diamond (2015) have observed that the countries posting high rates of growth in Africa today are the same one that departed from the orthodoxy of liberal ideals. In this respect, Ethiopia and Rwanda stand out. While the developmental strides of these countries may not be easily replicated in other countries, their records of achievement surpass other countries that operate their economies on the logic of accumulation

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through the hegemony of market fundamentalist ideas. These countries ­operate within the orbit of developmental states in ways that ensure and allow the state to participate in economic activities and allocate resources in priority areas. Nagar (2019) studies the idea of the developmental state in three countries in Africa, namely Ethiopia, Mauritius, and Rwanda. Though these countries represent three different outcomes due to the dynamics of state-society relations, they remain prime examples of how the state can creatively intervene in the economy in ways that can ensure distributive outcomes and build domestic capacity for industrialization. In relation to the political economy of Africa, debates around whether or not a developmental state can exist are not new. Scholars like Mkandawire (2001) and Edigheji (2010) have engaged with the feasibility of developmental state in Africa. The arguments have centered around whether the phenomenal success East Asian countries recorded through state-led industrialization efforts can be replicated in Africa. This debate came against the backdrop of frontal attacks launched by international financial institutions against the state, as explained earlier. The argument that the state in Africa cannot be developmental due to lack of institutional or government faculty is ahistorical and evinces ignorance of the several efforts made by the first generation of African leaders to engage in development through national development plans and state-directed development (Kholi 2004). This perspective fails to appreciate the influence of the global capitalist hegemonic forces that underpin the historical relations between the continent and the West. These historical forces and their contemporary manifestations through globalization have forced all governments to rethink and restructure the state-market relationships in their respective countries and to pay greater homage to “market forces” (Mkandawire 2001). Notwithstanding various indigenous efforts at the national and continental levels, such as the Lagos Plan of Action and the Final Act of Lagos of 1981, the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) and the various regional integration efforts, the political economy of Africa has posed diverse outcomes and presented complexities that are beyond any straightforward analysis. While the 1980s can be rightly referred to as the lost decade (Adedeji 1991, December), several countries on the continent emerged from the conflicts and wars to record some impressive growth. In this category are Rwanda, Mozambique, South Africa (after 1994), Sierra Leone, and Liberia. Ghana, Nigeria, and Ethiopia, among others, also achieved some level of economic growth as well as structural transformation, especially in the services sector (ECA 2015). Scholars have argued that some of the growth recorded is due, in part, to overaccumulation in newly industrializing countries such as China, Brazil, India, and Russia. In what was celebrated, albeit prematurely, as Africans’ moment of transition from laggards to lions or African rising from a hopeless to a hopeful continent, gross domestic product grew at an average of 7 percent across the continent, with some countries such as Sierra Leone and Ethiopia

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recording well above 10 percent (Taylor 2014). While many contend that the growth was largely spurred by a boom in commodity prices that lasted over a decade from around 2002 to 2014, others such as Ghazanchyan and Stotsky (2013) contend that the revolution in global systems of mobile communication; the maturing financial sector, evident in robust capital markets; the inflow of foreign direct investment; and a very dynamic informal sector contributed a great deal to the growth narrative. However, the artificial nature of the growth and its lack of rootedness in the society have resulted in lack of its inclusiveness and sustainability. What has emerged after the global financial crisis of 2007–2011 is a new form of debt accumulation for a majority of African countries. Apart from the structural configuration of the Political Economy of Africa, there has also been some changes in the portfolio of development partners. Beyond the traditional relations with the West, namely European Countries, there have been massive increases in the number of countries that have engaged in trade and investment relations with Africa. More than any other country, China has become an important trade partner with the continent, displacing Europe and the United States as the largest trade partner with Africa in 2013. Other partners such as India, Brazil, Turkey, and Russia, among others, are also making inroads into the continent on trade, investment, and different forms of technical aids and cooperation. Since independence in the late 1950s–1960s, African leaders have also recognized the importance of instituting a regional governance architecture that can foster greater level of cooperation, deepen integration, and foster inclusive development. The motivation for the pursuit of a regional governance approach to development has been rooted in the sense of shared identity of the peoples of the continent. South of the Sahara under, the ideology is known as Pan-­ Africanism. The transformation of the Organisation of African Unity to African Union in 2002, the formation of the New Partnership for African Development in 2001, and the recent signing of the African Continental Free Trade Area are all manifestations of the importance attached to regional integration in Africa (ECA 2015). The achievement of the regional integration objectives continues to face challenges due to both lack of political will among political elites and disproportionality in the level of development among the states on the continent, which has led to a situation in which African migrants move from regions of low economic development to regions of relatively high economic development (see Nyamnjoh 2006). In addition, undue interference by external actors also affects migration (Adedeji 2012). Concerns over protection of borders by elites in different African countries have led to the criminalization of informal trade across borders and the mistreatment of fellow Africans with regard to labor issues. These factors combine to undermine the developmental prospects of regional integration. Thus, the Curse of Berlin (Adebajo 2010) continues to hamper the realization of African renaissance in various forms.

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This collection constitutes a unique and single specialist compendium that analyzes the African Political Economy in its theoretical, historical, and policy dimensions. It interrogates the uniqueness of African Political Economy within the global capitalist system, which is ever changing and complex. The future of African Political Economy should be examined through both epistemological and policy prisms. At the level of conceptualization and theorization, the African Political Economy should be studied as a discipline. This will provide opportunity for students and researchers to appreciate the historical background of the contemporary economy. An indigenous approach to studying the Africa Political Economy will also ensure that policymakers are able to design appropriate trade and industrial policies that engage the continent with the outside world. Moreover, regional economic communities will need to play greater roles in ensuring that regional value chains are created out of the abundant natural resources that are available. Boosting capacity for domestic resource mobilization will be critical for ensuring that African countries meet the required infrastructural needs to drive development potentials. Services, as well as informal sectors, are also critical to ensuring that Africa leverage on its burgeoning population and a relatively rising middle class. Chapters in this book engage with how domestic and international political economic forces have and continue to shape development outcomes on the continent. They complement existing literature in the evolving field, including Claude Ake’s classic, the Political Economy of Africa, published by Longman in 1981.

Organization of the Book and Thematic Focus This book is divided into seven parts: I. Historical and Theoretical Foundations of African Political Economy II. African Political Economy Thinkers III. The State and the Political Economy of Development in Africa IV. Political Economy of Reforms in Africa V. Sectoral Approaches to African Political Economy VI. Security and Political Economy of Africa VII. Regional Integration and African Political Economy The first part, which deals with the history and theoretical foundations of the African Political Economy of capitalism in Africa, explicates the historical forces such as colonialism, globalization, and how class struggles between the bourgeoisie and proletariat have conditioned the structure of accumulation in Africa. Whereas some deny the existence of class in Africa, Marxists argue that there is an international alliance made up of what Cedric Robinson (2010) describes as the Transnational Capitalist Class (TCC), which shapes the theoretical and policy orientation of political economy in Africa. John Saul’s contribution to this section is a combination of conceptual, theoretical, and historical

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analysis of political economy broadly. He argues that the political and the economy in political economy must be understood as the two distinct variables that are determined by the dialectic of antagonism and cooperation, concern for the society, and the search for individual accumulation, especially under capitalist systems. In other words, neither of these two related concepts should be studied in isolation. As we noted earlier, the global economic system that has been obtained since the early 1970s has suffered from internal contradictions; the hegemony of market has led to disciplinary boundaries in the study of economics and political science. Theoretically, Saul employs Marxism as a tool of analysis by placing the society in terms of its class contradictions. He also placed his analysis within the broad category of center-left liberals or social democrats in the context of concern over the hegemony of the market as the unbiased umpire for allocation of resources. Given the hegemonic control that capitalism has come to assume, this chapter concludes that there is a need for the moralizing of social science, in which concern for society and its preservation are given consideration in the search for profit maximization: the core objective of global capitalist system. He sees this as a struggle between the left and the right, between political economy and capitalism. He concludes that this struggle continues, and it must be fought by new social movements if the human society is to be preserved from the predation of capitalism. Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni’s contribution is more specific to the historical analysis of the peripheralization of the African economy in the global capitalist system. He deploys Ngugi Wathiog’o’s four journeys of capitalism to explain how Africa was inserted into the exploitative circuit of global capitalism. These four journeys of capital include the slave trade, the slave plantation system, colonialism, and global debt slavery. The core of his argument in this book is the entrapment of Africa in the globalist system. He identifies two forms of predicament that signify the entrapment of Africa. He argues that at one level, it highlights an invidious position occupied by Africa within global coloniality, characterized by being simultaneously at the ‘center’ and at the ‘periphery’ of the modern world capitalist system. At another level, it underscores discursive entanglement of Africa in global colonial/imperial/capitalist matrices of power that sustains asymmetrical global architecture and configuration of power, whereby even anti-systemic resistance and extra-structural agency are deeply shaped by the metaphysical/cognitive empire, long after the dismantlement of the direct physical empire. The contradictions of Africa serving simultaneously as the center and periphery of global capitalism merit deeper reflections and analysis. Shackled by the burden of history and the contemporary architecture of global capital, the continent remains the poorest region in the world, with instability, conflicts, and insecurity as inevitable outcomes in many places. After tracing the various processes and systems through which Africa got to its present peripheral condition, the chapter concludes that what is needed is for Africa, together with the rest of the Global South, to draw lessons from its long history of contact and entrapment in global coloniality and intensify the unfinished decolonization struggles. A return to the Bandung Conference of 1953

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and its ideology of development through solidarity in the Global South would be a starting point. Madalitzo Phiri follows in this line of argument, departing from the neoliberalists’ position that Western capitalism is benign and beneficial to Africa. He argues that those who embellish capitalism as adding value to social transformation in Africa omit the history of capitalism on how violence, racial capitalism, racism, white supremacy, and the institutionalization of power by groups of nations cemented inequalities that were predicated on the unbridled fetishization of African societies and the body. Thus, he recommends that capitalism needs to be understood as a violent ideology, which was achieved through institutions of domination. Phiri makes the poignant point that, undoubtedly, mercantile capital carried in it the fundamental contradictions of malevolent and benign intents. Colonial and mercantile capital contained in them the fundamental contradictions that gave rise to endemic inequalities in contemporary Africa and class formations that exacerbated previously inherited pre-colonial, multi-faceted social formations. In fashioning a way out of these contradictions, one might want to agree with Amin (2014: 36) that African peoples and governments have not yet developed counterstrategies of their own, similar perhaps to what some East Asian countries have been deploying. The alternative, from an African point of view, needs to combine the building of auto-centered economies, social structures, and societies in order to participate more equally and fully in the global economy. However, this is not entirely correct. Adedeji (2002) argues that the failure of development in Africa is not for lack of strategy or efforts. As mentioned earlier, African leaders have adopted various strategies such as the Lagos Plan of Action and the Final Act of Lagos (1981), African Alternative to Structural Adjustment Programmes 1989, Abuja Treaty of 1991, New Partnership for African Development 2001, and the nascent African Continental Free Trade Area. These strategies have not worked to foster development due to both domestic and external factors. Adopting historical and theoretical approaches, Abdullahi Sule-Kano traces how the African Political Economy transformed into capitalism. Contrary to the revisionist argument that economic system in Africa is not conducive to production and entrepreneurship, Sule-Kano argues that concrete evidence of human culture in the context of social relations to production is available in abundance on the African continent, from the Nubian Pyramids of Khemit to the relics of Monomotapa and Zimbabwe and from the Ethiopian mountains through Timbuktu to Morocco. He further notes that the development of shelter in the primitive-communal social formations in Africa began from a gradual evolution of engineering of collapsible architecture (sticks, shrubs, and woods with which they built huts and houses) and much later the engineering of producing clothing, domestic items, and pottery. Africa moved from the communal system, which according to Sule-Kano is the most resilient of all social modes of production, to a feudal system. In relations to Western-styled capitalism though, the author agrees with both Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Phiri that colonialism served as the handmaiden of this social relation of production in

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Africa. In this connection, he argues that by the time of the attainment of the political independence, Africa had transformed into a huge productive base for capitalist industrial raw materials and a vast market for capitalist industrial commodities. Consequently, the foundation was set for the pursuit of different types of capitalist systems in the different entities that emerged as independent countries in their path to national capitalist development. Ian Taylor takes the preceding arguments forward by expounding on the continued dependent nature of the political economy of Africa. He argues that despite the recent euphoria about a rising Africa, the fundamental structure of African economies in its colonial capitalist origin, the extractive base and lack of a leadership that have autonomy in the society predispose it to further exploitation by old and new partners. He concludes that relationships based on extraction have not historically worked as a catalyst for development, which is a qualitative increase in the living standards of people. Thus, it becomes imperative for Africa to move away from an economic system that is based on external demands-demand for unprocessed minerals and commodity. Perhaps as a result of the failure of the state to assure conditions of qualitative living, citizens increasingly make demands for better lives—from the several service delivery protests in South Africa; protests against fuel prices in Nigeria; protest against sit-tight and dysfunctional regimes, such as the one that led to the resignation of Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria in April 2019; protests over food prices that recently led to the fall in the three decades rule of Al Bashir of Sudan also in April 2019; and street protests. They have become tools of political expression. The boardroom also plays important roles in negotiating spaces and making political economy decisions, among both the ruling elites and corporate managers. How street protests and boardroom decisions shape the political economy is the focus of Dung Pam Sha’s chapter in this book. The author applies political economy theory to reflect: (a) changes in public policy and state regulations; (b) changes in composition of classes and class alliances; (c) changes in regimes without changes in the character of the state; (d) changes in global policy as a result of street actions; and (e) changes in political economy academic discourse. Sham notes that protests are triggered by non-inclusive growth, unemployment, and corruption. He concludes that a more inclusive political economy arrangement is imperative for ensuring that the needs of the citizens are met. Central to any discourse on the African Political Economy is the nature and the character of the state. The state and its institutions constitute the political in relation to the economy. Finding an appropriate role for the state and restructuring the state in Africa to foster inclusive development are the subjects of Olufemi Mimiko’s chapter in this book. He interrogates the various forms of theories and concepts that have been used to explain the state in Africa. Against the backdrop of the origin and nature of the state in Africa as an overdeveloped, authoritarian, dependent, and externally oriented institution (see Oloruntoba 2017; Wariboko 2002), Mimiko examines the call for the establishment of a Capitalist Developmental State on the continent. While this line

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of thought occupied scholars in the 1990s, perspectives differ on the feasibility of democratic developmental state in Africa. When compared with the Asian counterpart, Mimiko notes that given the very weak productive capacity of the African economy, largely a consequence of the violent disruption of slave trade, and subsequent despoilment through foreign intrusion, it was evident that the neoclassical model, when it debuted on the continent as structural adjustment, could not have done better than it did. It further weakened the African state and made it unable to resist newer patterns of domination by a more-assured, better-resourced, and historically privileged global capitalist economic system. He concludes that Africa must commit to the evolution of such a strong state as a critical first step on the path to rapid and sustained economic growth, without which development will continue to be a mirage. The second part of this book examines the economic thoughts of some African political leaders and intellectuals. Despite the overarching influence of foreign ideas in shaping economic policies in post-independent Africa, various African leaders and intellectuals have enunciated political cum economic thoughts that were geared toward achieving socio-economic development on the continent. Leading the pack in this regard is Kwame Nkrumah, foremost Pan-Africanist and the first President of Ghana. Jasper Abembia Ayelazuno and Lord Mawuko-Yevugah locate Nkrumah’s political economic thoughts within the radical political economic theories such as Marxism, Dependency, and World Systems. Given his role in the struggle for the political independence of Ghana and his knowledge of the global capitalism, the authors note that Nkrumah made many insightful contributions to our understanding of Africa’s position in the global economy, and he did so at a critical historical juncture when the states in the continent had just gained independence and started engaging with forces of the global economy in their efforts to build their economies and provide their citizens with the necessities of life. His magnus opus Neocolonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism chronicles the continued efforts of the colonialists to entrap African countries and their economies within the domain of their control, even after conceding political leadership. Riding against the wind of his time, he applied a critical International Political Economy approach to both challenge and design policies that were geared toward industrialization in Ghana. Given the historical processes that led to gaining political independence, he advocated for African unity as the only way through which the continent can resist the frontal assaults of neocolonial agents and the institutions that they control. Nkrumah’s ideas remain pertinent today as of when he wrote them over five decades ago. The new scramble for Africa’s resources both from the East and the West makes Nkrumah’s call for unity and regional integration in Africa to be more compelling. The next chapter by Amber Murrey focuses on the revolutionary political economy ideas of Thomas Sankara, the radical and transformative leader of Burkina Faso from 1983 to 1987. Murrey locates her chapter within the ongoing debates on decolonization of knowledge and beings both in Africa and elsewhere. Like Nkrumah before him, Sankara clearly understood the racial

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basis of the unequal international division of labor and the hierarchy of power that predispose Africa as a peripheral region of the world. Leading by a spartan example, he mobilized his people to alter basic assumptions about how a society should be governed. He advocated for food sufficiency, self-reliance, and community work. At the international level, Sankara upbraided the leading lights of global capitalist order for keeping Africa in chains of debts and aid. According to Murrey, Sankara worked to break from neocolonial models of development, from colonial knowledge systems, and oppressive imperial capitalist economic relations. In doing this, he imagined a world in which the political and economic systems functioned for the well-being of the people, but he also put in place policies and projects that achieved tangible successes in well-being and happiness. Although he was cut short by reactionary forces within and outside the country (see Murrey 2018), his ideas reverberate across Africa, today, among the youth who are tired of self-serving rulers, who care more for the interests of foreign capital than their citizens. The next chapter by Sylvester Odion Akhaine centers on the political economy theory of Claude Ake, the foremost Nigerian political economist. Ake moved from a liberal intellectual tradition to a radical one after his encounter with radicals like Walter Rodney, Issah Shivji, Dan Nabudere, and a host of others. Starting with his Social Science as Imperialism, Ake criticized Eurocentric knowledge systems and argued that they need to be subordinated to African knowledge systems, if the continent is to develop. Ake’s work on the political economy of Africa, as well as democracy and development, laid bare the colonial origin of many of the development challenges that the continent is confronted with today. Akhaine correctly locates Ake’s work within the context of how the nature and the character of the state affect the extent to which development can be achieved. In those regards, he notes that we can neither understand the state nor the economy if viewed as disparate categories. They are connected. These become clearer in his explanation of the relationship between the state, government, and the ruling class. Sylvester Odion Akhaine concludes that Ake did not only write, he also established the Centre for Advanced Social Science to study social sciences in Africa—a task he pursued until his untimely death in an air crash on November 7, 1996. The next chapter by Marcel Nagar is a critique of Thandika Mkandawire’s works. Mkandawire is a foremost thinker on development in Africa. Nagar locates her chapter within Mkandawire’s scholarly contributions to the field of Africa’s political economy situated within a historical political economy approach. Her chapter draws on Mkandawire’s work in arguing that the ‘ideas’ imposed on African governments (in the form of various economic doctrines) by international organizations, international financial institutions (IFIs), and aid agencies have contributed to the processes of maladjusting the African state by largely disrupting its critical learning process in the post-colonial era, as well as compromising the quality of African economists needed to effectively manage Africa’s development. While noting that development remains a distinct possibility from Mkandawire’s perspective, Nagar concludes that the various

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ideas, institutions, and interests and incentives that have permeated throughout Africa’s post-colonial political economy have ultimately led to the ­‘maladjustment’ of the contemporary African state. This process of maladjustment has left Africa with a poor understanding of itself and requires African scholars to take this momentous window of opportunity to rectify our predicament. It is now up to present and future academics to take up the baton passed down by seasoned scholars such as Mkandawire and accumulate knowledge, which is ‘reflective and cumulative’ in order to avoid falling prey to the passing development ‘fads’ as done by our predecessors. Siphamandla Zondi’s contribution focuses on the political economic thought of Amilcar Cabrah, a revolutionary thinker and activist from Guinea-­ Bissau. Like Amber Murrey, Zondi locates his contribution in the context of the ongoing struggle for decolonization of knowledge and advocacy for auto-­ development. In this regard, he argues that Cabralian thought was born out of the need to liberate not just political and economic power but cultural and mental realities as well. Zondi also argues that Cabral was not only a thinker but an activist. He notes that Cabral epitomizes thought leadership in post-­ colonial South, in that he combines both the commitment to thinking or theorizing about change in society and zealous activism for putting into practice this radical transformation desired. He was both a theorist for the radical struggle for freedom of the oppressed and an activist leading street actions to bring about freedom. In this way, he weaved together his political biography and his geography of reason. He combined the value and significance of practical activism in the form of political organization and mobilization, on the one hand, and the use of thought that is designed to challenge the conceptual basis of the oppressive system on the other. Cabral connects his theory to the imperative of agrarian revolution as a necessary condition for development in his country and the continent of Africa at large. Zondi concludes that the idea of theory as the weapon of the oppressed is central to Cabral’s approach to the struggle for freedom. It is a crucial contribution to the ongoing efforts to find out what fundamentally explain the multiple crises and the predicament that Africa and other parts of the Global South have to contend with in their search for restoration, dignity, and development. Adekeye Adebajo’s chapter examines how visionary individuals can use institutions to advance development ideas. In this regard, the exemplary works of Adebayo Adedeji, the Nigerian international bureaucrat who was the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa from 1975 to 1991, was brought into focus. Adedeji represented a credible alternative voice for Africa against the wave of neoliberal ideas that swept through Africa in the 1980s. Working with other African economists and political leaders, he championed ideas of state-led industrialization and African integration at a time when the fad was market fundamentalism and integration into the global economy. According to Adebajo, Adedeji’s ideas were based on his analysis that Africa could not achieve economic growth as long as it did not develop national self-reliance radically to transform the continent’s inherited colonial produc-

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tion structures, which had been built on the export of raw materials. He thus advocated an Africa-centered development paradigm with massive socio-­ ­ economic transformation preceding and accompanying economic growth. Adedeji often focused on the need for Africa to rediscover a sense of cultural self-confidence in order to overcome its psychological dependence on its former European colonial masters. He criticized the discipline of development economics as focusing excessively on economic growth rather than human development. His views remain pertinent today as they were when he was at the forefront of propagating them and advising African leaders to adopt them, despite the opposition from the self-styled high priests of development from the World Bank and elsewhere. Zvenyika Eckson Mugari engages with the work of Sam Moyo, the Zimbabwean expert on land and agrarian reforms. Sam Moyo’s work focused on the land question in Zimbabwe and Southern Africa in general. According to Mugari, Moyo inherited and continued with a tradition of critical analysis, which had a well-established lineage of critical political economy scholarship with a focus on colonial land policies and how they impacted colonial trajectories of peasant to proletariat transitions among subject populations. The mass land dispossession of indigenous people of Southern Africa and their being herded into what was, in principle, labor concentration camps named native reserves, and the migrant labor phenomenon they engendered have been the subject of intellectual debate from the early days of colonial settler occupation in Southern Africa. Moyo’s work continues to be relevant today, given the unresolved land question not only in Zimbabwe but in Africa in general. William Mpofu brings the political and economic ideas of Thabo Mbeki into focus by linking his life as a political exile, statesman, and ex-President to the struggles for development and renaissance in Africa. With training that spans several sites of contradictory ideological orientations, Mbeki’s political chemistry was solidified in the crucible of struggle. Rooted in Africa and conscious of the inextricable link between South Africa and the continent of Africa, he did not only promote policies that empower the black elites through Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) but promoted the African Agenda through the New Partnership for African Development and the reforms of the African Union. Although both his domestic economic policy and his external development policies such as Growth, Employment, and Redistribution (GEAR) and NEPAD were heavily criticized (Terreblanche 2002), Mbeki’s ideas were African-centered and were framed within the historical processes of Africa’s insertion into the global capitalist system and how the continent might extricate itself toward auto-centric development. The last chapter in this section is by Adewale Aderemi, Tobi Oshodi, and Samson Oyefolu and examines the contributions of Bade Onimode to the crisis of development in Africa. Like Claude Ake, Onimode applied Marxism and Dependency theories to analyze the crisis of development in Africa. He noted that the African crisis of development is economic and political. Rather than mutually exclusive failures, the economic and the political failures are self-­

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reinforcing. One can, indeed, self-reproduce the other. Onimode’s scholarly interventions on the debt crisis were rooted in the contradictions of the global capitalist system and its penchant for the exploitation of the African continent. Like Ake and Mafeje, he advocated for the need for theoretical endogeneity rather than preoccupation with extraversion. As a scholar-activist, he wrote and organized protests against the descent of Nigerian military rulers into the cesspit of neoliberal ideals. Onimode’s interpretation of the crisis of development in Africa and the recommendations that he provides remains relevant today, as capital continues to discipline the state to pursue market-oriented policies. Despite the neoliberal turn in the global capitalist order, the state remains critical to development. The state in Africa has continued to play one role or the other in shaping development outcomes through subnational units such as the province or local government administration. David Mohaye’s chapter in this book focuses on the analysis of local government administration within the context of South Africa’s developmental state. He notes that decentralization of governance has the potential to facilitate inclusive development. Notwithstanding, he cautions that, as the examples of many municipalities in South Africa have shown, local government administration can also be subjected to state capture by political and bureaucratic elites. He concludes that as part of the reforms of local government in the country, Councils need to pass policies that incentivize performance, especially because it is difficult to attract high technical skills in small municipalities. The provincial government may need to rethink the wisdom of capping salaries of senior municipal administrators in accordance with the size of a municipality. The challenge of ensuring that local administration is staffed with experienced and skillful people is not limited to South Africa. It is a continental issue that deserves much attention in terms of policy interventions. Since the formalization of the colonial state and the subsequent granting of independence, the state has been facing various centripetal and centrifugal forces that affect its stability and capacity. Natasha Shivji’s chapter historicizes the claims that were made by secessionist movements in the Northern Frontier District (NFD) of belonging to the ‘Greater Somali’ region through their shared pre-colonial history of flourishing city-states and networks of trade and their homogeneity as people sharing a single language and religion. She analyzes these claims to produce a historical narrative that places the moment of political crisis-secession firmly within pre-colonial histories of long-distance trade and migrations that were disrupted during the colonial period but reconstituted on the periphery to create relations of exploitation and divergent class interests. The instrumentalization of power, crisis, and chaos to reorganize social relations of production and create conditions for exploitation is so imminent and obvious in many African countries where the sense of nationhood has not been firmly developed. John Mary Kanyamurwa’s chapter examines how globalization processes have affected youth employment in Uganda. The core of his argument is the deleterious effects of globalization processes in weakening the capacity of the

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state to create employment for youth. Coupled with other domestic challenges such as wars, lack of political vision, and corruption among political elites, youth unemployment remains a critical problem in Uganda. Despite this, he notes that recent analyses further observe that globalization increases free international trade and transnational capital inflows in an economy, thereby boosting investment which subsequently creates many more paying jobs for the local labor market. However, the extent to which a country can derive benefits from these processes is a function of the institutions and presence of what Dani Rodrik (2005) calls initial conditions such as relevant laws for the protection of property rights, infrastructure, and a critical mass of highly qualified workforce. Where these are absent as in the case of Uganda, unemployment is the inevitable result. Ambrose Kessy’s chapter examines the implications of neoliberalism on the coffee industry in Tanzania. Although coffee farming constitutes the livelihood of about 400,000 people, especially in the rural areas, the application of neoliberal market reforms negatively affected this sector to the extent that it led to serious economic crisis for the country. Kessy concludes by showing how private and state capital can be better harnessed to resuscitate the coffee sector in Tanzania. Obodai Torto brings a rather innovative perspective to the challenge of human security in Africa. Using northern Ghana as a case study, his chapter foregrounds the application of unorthodox means of resolving conflicts in different parts of the continent. As examples from Rwanda, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Uganda have shown, African countries are increasingly turning to community-­based approach to resolving conflict and fostering human security. Using a political economy historical approach, Olaoye Ibukun James, Ayinde Opeyemi, Adewumi Mathew Olaniyi, Ezekiel Ayinde Alani, and Babatunde Raphael Olarewaju examine fertilizer policy in Nigeria in terms of governance structures. They argue that given the contributions of agriculture to the overall export portfolio of Nigeria and the increasing need to meet the food requirement of the growing population of the country, an appropriate fertilizer policy must be put in place to aid productivity, which could, in turn, lead to transformation in the agricultural sector. Adebowale Ayobade’s chapter examines the phenomenon of deindustrialization in Nigeria and shows how changes in the global political economy from manufacturing to financialization have affected industrialization in peripheral regions of the world like Nigeria. Using Lagos State, Nigeria, as case study, Ayobade shows how former factories and warehouses for industrial goods have been converted to event centers. These sudden transformations have implications for job creation in the country. The study also shows the extent to which market forces have undermined the power of the state in Nigeria, as it is in other African countries to prioritize production, with its job-creating prospects. The fourth section of the book contains chapters that examine the political economy of reforms in Africa. Following the lost decades of the 1980s, African countries undertook a number of reforms in economic, political, and social sectors. In the economic sector, the structural adjustment programs repre-

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sented the fulcrum of the reforms in which liberalization of trade, finance, and investment took center stage. The results of these reforms have been mixed in terms of volume of exports, rate of foreign direct investment, and overall health of the economy. While impressive levels of growth have been recorded in several parts of the continent, leading to the euphoria of African rising narratives, critics argue that such growth is either dependent, insufficient to foster inclusive development, or generally lack basis in the autonomous capacity of the continent to facilitate industrialization (Taylor 2014; Fioramonti 2013). Politically, African countries have democratized and followed in the logic of liberal democracy. While there have been gains in terms of political participation with citizens making demands and successfully effecting regime change, there have been concerns that democratic freedoms are being contained in countries such as Uganda, Rwanda, Cameroun, and Ethiopia (Freedom House 2018). Using the neoliberal economic paradigm as a point of interrogation, Akinola Adeoye examines economic reforms in Africa. He investigates the implications of the adoption of the structural adjustment programs on the overall economic health of the continent over the past two decades. He concludes that despite natural resources that are available in abundance, lack of state capacity has hindered the realization of the developmental potentials that such rich deposit of minerals holds for the continent. With the particular case of Nigeria, the author concludes that despite the lingering challenges with the reforms in the oil sector, such as the continued payment of oil subsidies, it did facilitate some improvement in the overall performance. Rotimi Ajayi and Segun Oshewolo further engage with one of the key strategies of reforms in Africa: New Economic Partnership for Africa’s Development. (NEPAD). They provide a historical analysis of the crisis of development, exemplified by the failures of previous strategies and the imperative of NEPAD. Despite the huge promise that NEPAD holds for achieving self-­ reliance, the design and its structure are suffused with some internal contradictions that restrict its implementation. The authors advocate more consultations with members of the African Union, especially in the context of the Paul Kagame report, which provides more comprehensive recommendations on how the African Union can effectively facilitate socio-economic development in Africa. How this will be done remains to be seen in the light of the dissonance among African countries and the change in the leadership of the African Union. External factors contribute to the economic crisis facing Africa. This is due, in part, to the financialization of the global economy, in which one problem in one country leads to contagion effects in other countries. As mentioned earlier, there are internal contradictions within capitalism that predispose it to cyclical crisis. Foluso Akinsola’s chapter examines the implications of global economic crises on Africa’s economies. Using the 2008–2009 financial crisis as a point of interrogation, he shows that while a country such as South Africa appeared to be immune from the crisis, Nigeria, Kenya, and Ethiopia were severely affected due to the exposure of these economies to the global economy. Akinsola places

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financial crisis within the debate of the importance of financial regulation. He concludes that the literature has not agreed on whether financial regulation is associated with an increase in financial instability. Public debt remains one of the main challenges of Africa’s economies. Although many of them got debt relief from creditor countries and international financial organizations in the early 2000s, there is a new turn to debt accumulation in African countries. Public debt and its governance in sub-­ Saharan African countries is the subject of the chapter by Motunrayo Akinsola. She argues that high debt burden poses challenges to economic growth. As with many other macro-economic challenges, Akinsola argues that lack of good governance represents a major causative factor for the new regime of debt accumulation in Africa. She concludes that improved quality of institution and more transparent economic management models are critical to ensuring that public debt facilitates economic growth. Gorden Moyo’s chapter examines the role of China in the new regime of debt accumulation in Africa. Although perspectives vary on the risks that loans from China pose to the future of sustainable development in Africa, it goes without saying that lack of appropriate scrutiny on the structure and terms of these debts can undermine the development aspirations of the continent. Moyo argues that the allegations of debt-trap diplomacy have been made worse by China’s lack of transparency surrounding the details of the deals and contracts made between Chinese investors, lenders, and financiers, on the one hand, and African governments and state-owned enterprises, on the other. It, therefore, becomes pertinent for civil society organizations in Africa to be involved in mediating the spaces of debt acquisition, disbursement, and management in Africa. Samuel Oloruntoba’s chapter focuses on Euro-African relations in the context of trade and development. Using Nigeria and South Africa as case studies, he argues that the relationships between the two economic blocs have been defined by consideration for geostrategic interests by the European Union (EU) and desire for market access by African countries. He notes that South Africa’s relationship with the EU has been guided by the Trade Development Cooperation Agreements, while Nigeria’s has been under the Generalized Systems of Preferences under the Cotonou Partnership Agreements. As the debate over the Economic Partnership Agreements continues, South Africa signed, while Nigeria did not sign due to consideration for ensuring a conducive environment for its emerging industrial plans. Oloruntoba also argues that the increasing presence of emerging countries in Africa provides the continent to be more strategic in its approach to engaging them in ways that can ensure accessing more benefits through trade and investment relations. Adelaja Odukoya takes Oloruntoba’s argument on diversification of development partners in Africa forward by analyzing the lessons that Africa can learn from the BRICS countries (made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). Though coined by Jim O’Neill, a Goldman Sachs executive, to refer to emerging countries that are growing in the early- to mid-2000s, these coun-

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tries have become a form of economic bloc seeking for a more equitable global governance architecture. Led by China, the group has established a Development Bank and entered into various agreements to foster higher levels of interactions among themselves. Taylor (2014) argues that these countries are not seeking for a fundamental change in the current global capitalist order; rather, their aspiration is that of accommodation in the system. The change in government in Brazil to a far-­ right conservative and a more business-inclined president in South Africa could lend credence to Ian Taylor’s view. This point resonates with Odukoya’s argument that the seeming divergence of BRICS from the countries at the core of global capitalism is rather superficial and obfuscates the ideological substance that drives the model, which is essentially capitalism. While acknowledging the market reforms carried out in China and Brazil, the author emphasizes the role that the state plays in leading strategic sectors of the economies in these countries. This appears to be the lesson that he expects African countries to learn from the BRICS countries. However, the capacity of the state in Africa to drive such initiatives remains an issue for further interrogation. The last chapter in this section by Ebenezer Ishola explicates on the possible lessons that African countries can learn from Cuba. Perhaps more than any other country since the Cold War, Cuba has defied the hegemony of the market, following an alternative path to development. It has achieved impressive success in terms of human development. The leadership anchored their political ideology on Socialism, with the state taking control of the commanding heights of the economy. Ishola notes that Cuba’s developmental state varies from the East Asian experience in the areas of bureaucracy and private sector which are central to a capitalist-oriented developmental state. The state in Cuba controls the means of production in line with its socialist leaning. But can this be replicated in Africa? Cuba has a strong leadership anchored on a very coherent ideology, which is absent in many countries in Africa. It will require a cadre of leadership with vision for autonomous development to arrive at the level of development that Cuba has reached over the past seven decades. The fifth section in the book focuses on the sectoral aspects of the political economy of Africa. Godwin Onuoha’s chapter reengages with the debate on the nexus between the political economy of resource extraction and prospects of state-led development and examines the conceptual and analytical challenges of resource-rich states becoming developmental and the conditions under which this can be achieved. He concludes that the state in Africa has a role to play in turning the massive naturally abundant raw materials into developmental ends. The chapter logically concludes that the needs of the state to mediate the rampaging force of the market for individual accumulation and profit maximization ensures that social values and social contracts are guaranteed for the vulnerable part of the population. Komi Tsowou and Eunice Ajambo provide a broad examination of the sectoral approaches to economic development in Africa. They note that economic diversification within and between sectors spanning from the agricultural sec-

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tor to manufacturing and services sectors is critical for countries, in particular, developing countries, to create jobs and sustain structural transformation. The authors link the need for diversification to the realization of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals of 2030 and African Union Agenda 2063. They conclude that boosting productive capacity, guaranteeing investment, and ensuring a more integrated continent through initiatives such as the African Continental Free Trade Areas are central for achieving diversification of African economies. Chapters by Jesse Salah Ovediah, Angela Gapa, and Alexis Habiyaremye examine how the state can turn natural resource liabilities to assets in Africa against the backdrop of missing development potentials in the natural resources sector on the continent. The core of their arguments is that, with strong institutions (which are largely lacking in Africa), transparency and accountability, monitoring from civil society organizations, and visionary political leadership, natural resources can be used to bring about socio-economic transformation in Africa. In this regard, Ovediah notes that the resource-curse hypothesis is premised on the notion that natural resources are a liability because of the assumption that something about natural resources is different from other commodities and produces negative developmental outcomes. He notes that outcomes such as conflicts, insurgency, and wars are products of exclusion and poverty. Ovediah concludes that despite the challenges, there is an emerging consensus that the state in Africa should use the natural resources to foster industrialization. The extent to which the state can foster industrialization under the continuing governance challenges in many of the states in Africa remains to be seen. In her own intervention, Angela Gapa queries if natural resources in Africa are, indeed, a liability or asset. She notes that while natural resources have enhanced the importance of Africa in the global capitalist order through investment inflows from abroad, paradoxically, they have also hindered economic development. Using the resource-curse thesis as a point of interrogation, Gapa argues that rent seeking has obfuscated initiatives for socio-economic transformation that could have occurred from the abundance of natural resources in Africa. Alexis Habiyaremye concludes that, for resource-rich African countries to succeed in overcoming all these institutional and capability challenges, it is necessary to emancipate themselves from the domination of their resources by foreign corporations and be able to determine their development trajectory autonomously. Nathan Andrews and Charis Enns engage with the gender dimension of the extractive industry in Africa. They argue that gender analysis has been neglected in the scholarly analysis of the extractive industry. They note the dangers of devising legislation and policies that mask gender by focusing on ensuring human security around sites of extraction. Gender-specific threats end up being neglected in both policy and practice. Andrews and Enns conclude that though efforts are being made to address the issue of silences on women and their security in the extractive sector, in places like Kenya and Ghana, much still needs to be done.

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Emmanuel Owusu-Sekyere and Theresa Moyo focus on industrialization in Africa in the next two chapters in this section. They separately argue that though industrialization holds the key for job creation, globalization processes have adversely affected this sector in Africa. They recommend a long-term political agenda for industrialization on the continent that includes appropriate provision of infrastructures, a highly skilled workforce, and supportive institutions. Dominant narratives on industrialization are premised on the ability of a particular country to attract foreign direct investment. However, Dele Seteolu argues in his chapter in this section that the rules of engagement for what type of foreign direct investment (FDI) to attract is a political decision. He argues that the colonial origin of the state in Africa and the character of the political elites predispose the elites to attract FDI that contributes little to the overall transformation to the economy in Africa. Many of the FDIs are concentrated in extractive sectors where the ruling elites collect rents, leaving most of the citizens excluded from the benefits of such extractions. Kola Omomowo’s chapter focuses on the analysis of the political economy of microcredit in Africa. The chapter critiques the neoliberal orientation to promote microcredit as a means of enhancing household consumption. He argues that there are both positive and negative consequences to the neoliberal approach to microcredit in Africa. Rather than adopting a market approach to the provision of microcredit, as international financial institutions appear to the promoting, Omomowo concludes that poverty alleviation in Africa requires a broad approach that requires complementary economic and social policies and the deployment of various policy instruments. The high level of poverty and inequality makes social policies to be imperative. Marion’s chapter engages with this issue, arguing that national social policy choices emanate from political and social processes and the country’s economic stance. In consonance with the preceding chapters, the influence of global forces in shaping social policies at the national level is highlighted in this chapter. She concludes that given the increasing need for government to redistributive programs to mitigate exclusions, a transformative social policy is imperative in Africa. Innocent Chirisa, Brilliant Mavhima, and Tariro Nyevera establish a link between public health and political economy, arguing that health policies are affected by regional, national, and international political economic activities. They note that the proliferation of diseases affects productivity and development in Africa. Thus, it becomes imperative to put place appropriate policy at national, regional, and global levels that address the problem, in ways that can minimize the negative consequences of diseases on productivity. They also highlight the need for accountability in the management of resources so that money meant for buying medication does not end in private pockets. The last chapter in this section focuses on green economy. In this regard, Nwachukwu, Toby Precious makes the case for using green culture to elicit ecological justice activism. Nwachukwu explores the nature of green cultural advocacy as a

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c­ oncept that is potentially useful to describe the intentional matching or fusion of political and ecological justice activism for an eco-entrepreneurship development in Africa for policy enhancement and implementation for the social development professionals. The relevance of this chapter is underscored by the increasing concern over climate change and its deleterious effects on African development. In view of the weak capacity of the state to address the challenge of climate change, as well as the ambivalence of United States on this issue, it has become imperative for non-state actors to engage in ecological justice activism. From agriculture to mineral extraction, the promotion of green economy is inevitable in ensuring sustainable development in Africa. The sixth section in the book addresses the link between security and the political economy of development in Africa. Onah P. Thompson and Titiksha Fernandes establish a link between colonialism and violent conflicts in post-­ colonial Africa. These authors attempt to map out the cost associated with lives that have been lost during wars and conflicts after independence in Africa. Although this chapter appears to be innovative, it is difficult to put a value to the lives of human beings. Mumo Nzau’s chapter focuses on the political economy of terrorism and counter-terrorism. The author provides a detailed account of various forms and instances of terrorist attacks in different parts of Africa. He also shows how governments in various countries have responded to these waves of attacks. He concludes that terrorism and counter-terrorism should not be seen just as a security issue but a political economy issue where there are gains and losses for particular interests. In a similar line of thought, Fritz Nganje and Enock Ndawana examine the political economy of external intervention in Africa’s security. They argue that both traditional partners such as Europe and the United States and emerging partners such as China and Russia intervene in the security situation in Africa as a means of achieving their respective geostrategic interests. They note, rather poignantly, that reluctance on the part of African governments to cede some degree of national sovereignty to regional institutions, coupled with endemic rivalry between major regional and intraregional powers, such as South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, and Angola, has constrained homegrown efforts to deal with the continent’s peace and security challenges. Hence, the preponderance of other powers in finding solutions to the hydra-headed problem of insecurity, which some of these other powers played or still play some insidious roles in perpetuating. Nganje and Ndawana conclude that, apart from incorporating elements of human security into any strategy geared toward addressing security challenges on the continent, the role of the people as the referent of security and peace must be prioritized. Using Northeast Nigeria as a point of interrogation, Jobson Ewalefoh examines the political economy of insecurity in Africa. He notes that despite the fact Africa is largely spared of natural disasters, lack of prudent management of resources, intolerance, and all forms of extremism continue to foster conflicts and general insecurity on the continent. The Boko Haram insurgency in

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Northeast Nigeria has created conditions of instability that undermine development prospects. The author concludes that corruption is at the root of this challenge. Thus, it is imperative to solve the problem of corruption in order to tackle insecurity not only in Nigeria but Africa in general. The last chapter in this section by Check Achu establishes the link between nation building and security development. He argues that the adoption of a neoliberal approach to resolving conflicts in Africa has undermined the process of nation building. Achu concludes that rather than pursuing peace through orthodox approaches to conflict resolution, it will be important to adopt preventive diplomacy and other African indigenous conflict resolution approaches. The seventh section of the book focuses on regional integration, informal economy, and development in Africa. This section is important because regional integration represents one of the main pillars and strategies for fostering in Africa since the Lagos Plan of Action and the Final Act of Lagos of 1981 through NEPAD to the nascent Agenda 2063 of the African Union. Daniel Bach provides a theoretical basis and traces the historical contours of regional integration in Africa. He makes the important point that colonial regimes adopted regionalism as one of their strategies, which was probably done to save costs. This should be a lesson for the states in Africa today, as keeping to the artificial borders that define them has rendered them weak and vulnerable to neocolonialism and coloniality. Innocent Moyo’s chapter follows in this theoretical discourse. He argues that existing theories and practice of regional integration have omitted a very critical segment, namely non-state actors. He concludes that the result has been that regional integration in Africa is moving ahead of a significant part of its citizenry, that is, the political elites have not made conscious efforts to engage with the citizens through various platforms that are available. Perhaps this is being done, but the conscientization is not enough. Christal O. Spel adopts a welfare approach to regional integration and Pan-­ Africanism by examining how Africans living in other African countries are treated. She argues that even though African countries have made progress on different aspects of regional integration such as trade and infrastructures, there has not been any regional program to cater for the welfare of African migrants in other African countries. This category of people faces different deprivation in various degrees in terms of access to health and other social services. She concludes that in order for integration to be meaningful, they must incorporate an implementable program of action that can ensure the welfare protection of African migrants. Ekanade Israel provides a political analysis of forced deportation of African migrants residing in other African countries. By employing a political economy theoretical approach, he argues that forced repatriation of Africans from other African countries is motivated by both economic and political imperatives. This undermines regional integration and development. In her chapter, Dawn Nagar examines how realism drives the regional integration agenda in the Southern African Development Community. She notes that this realism is

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driven by both internal and external actors. Cliff Kodero makes a case for the promotion of informal cross-border traders in Africa. Although this sector contributes substantially to economic development, it faces so many challenges that undermine the possibility of harnessing its full potentials. Kodero concludes that rather than criminalizing informal cross-border traders, the government should provide them with all the support that they need. The last chapter in this book is by Gabila Nubong. It provides a comparative study of what Africa can learn from the European Union in the process of integration. Scholars have shown that Africa modeled its integration efforts after the European Union (Draper 2010). However, the differences in state capacity and the history of state formation, as well as the levels of economic development, make it difficult to replicate the European model of integration in Africa.

References Adebajo, Adekeye. 2010. The Curse of Berlin: Africa Security Dilemmas. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. Adedeji, Adebayo. 1991. Africa in the Nineteen-Nineties: A Decade for Socio-Economic Recovery and Transformation or Another Lost Decade? Lecture Delivered at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs. ———. 2002. From Lagos Plan of Action to the New Partnership for African Development and From the Acts of Lagos to the Constitute Act: Wither Africa? Keynote Address Prepared for Presentation at the African Forum for Envisioning Africa, Nairobi, Kenya, April 26–29. ———. 2012. The Travails of Regional Integration in Africa. In The EU and Africa: From Eurafrique to Afro-Europa, ed. A.  Adebajo and K.  Whiteman, 83–104. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. Ake, Claude. 1979. Social Science as Imperialism. Essex: Longman. ———. 1981. The Political Economy of Africa. Essex: Longman. ———. 2000. Democracy and Development in Africa. Baltimore: Brookings Institution Press. Amin, Sarmir. 2014. Understanding the Political Economy of Contemporary Africa. Africa Development 39: 15–36. Bhagwati, Jagdish. 2004. In Defense of Globalization. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bracking, Sarah, and Graham Harrison. 2003. Africa, Imperialism and New Forms of Accumulation. Review of African Political Economy 30 (9): 5–10. Diamond, Larry. 2015. The Democratic Recession. Journal of Democracy 26 (1): 141–155. Draper, Peter. 2010. Rethinking the (European) Foundations of Sub-Saharan African Regional Economic Integration: A Political Economy Essay. Working Paper No. 293, OECD, Paris. Economic Commission for Africa. 2015. Assessing Regional Integration in Africa. Addis Ababa: Economic Commission for Africa. Edigheji, Omano. 2010. Constructing a Democratic Developmental State in South Africa. Pretoria: Human Science Research Council. Fine, B. 2009. Development as Zombieconomics in the Age of Neo-Liberalism. Third World Quarterly 30 (5): 885–904.

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Fioramonti, L. 2013. Gross Domestic Problem: The Politics Behind the World’s Most Powerful Number. London: Zed Books. Frank, A.  Gunder. 1967. Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America. New York: Monthly Review Press. Freedom House. 2018. Democracy in the World. Washington, DC: Freedom House. Fukuyama, F. 1992. The End of History and the Last Man. New York: Free Press. ———. 2013. Democracy and the Quality of the State. Journal of Democracy 24 (4): 5–16. Ghazanchyan, Manuk, and Janet G. Stotsky. 2013. Drivers of Growth: Evidence from Sub-Saharan African Countries. IMF Working Paper, WP/13/236. Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund. Available: https://www.imf.org/external/ pubs/ft/wp/2013/wp13236.pdf. Accessed 1 July 2019. Gilpin, Robert. 2001. Global Political Economy: Understanding the International Economic Order. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Grosfoguel, Ramon. 2007. The Epistemic Decolonial Turn: Beyond Political-Economy Paradigm. Cultural Studies 21 (2–3): 211–223. Harvey, David. 2007. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2016. The Seventeen Contradictions and End of Capitalism. London: Oxford University Press. Hayek, Fredrick. 1960. The Constitution of Liberty: The Definitive Edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hoogvelt, Ankie. 2001. Globalization and the Post-Colonial World: The New Political Economy of Development. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ———. 2005. Postmodern Intervention and Human Rights Report of the Commission of Africa. Review of Africa Political Economy 106: 595–599. Joseph, Richard. 2016. The Nigeria Prospect: Democratic Resilience and Global Turmoil. Africaplus. https://africaplus.wordpress.com/2016/03/31/the-nigerian-prospect-democratic-resilience-amid-global-turmoil. Accessed 16 Mar 2017. Kholi, Atul. 2004. State-Directed Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mkandawire, Thandika. 1998. Thinking About Developmental State in Africa. Paper Presented at the UNU-AERC Workshop on Institutions and Development in Africa Held at the UNU Headquarters, Tokyo. ———. 2001. Thinking About Developmental States in Africa. Cambridge Journal of Economics 25 (2001): 289–313. Murrey, A. 2018. Introduction. In A Certain Amount of Madness. The Life, Politics and Legacies of Thomas Sankara, ed. A. Murrey, 1–18. London: Pluto Press. Nagar, Marcel. 2019. The Quest for Democratic Developmental States in Africa: A Study of Ethiopia, Mauritius and Rwanda. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, University of Johannesburg, South Africa. Nasong’o, Wanjala. 2018. Competing Theories and Concepts on Politics, Governance, and Development. In Palgrave Handbook of African Governance, Politics and Development, ed. S. Oloruntoba and T. Falola, 35–56. New York: Palgrave. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo. 2013. Perhaps Decoloniality Is the Answer? Critical Reflections on Development from a Decolonial Epistemic Perspective. Africanus: Journal of Development Studies 43 (2): 1–12. ———. 2018. Epistemic Freedom in Africa: Deprovincialization and Decolonization. London/New York: Routledge. Nyamnjoh, F.B. 2006. Insiders and Outsiders—Citizenship and Xenophobia in Contemporary Southern Africa. Dakar: CODESRIA.

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Oloruntoba, Samuel. 2016. Global Economic Crisis and the Role of the State in Bail-­ Out. In The Global Economic Recession and the Philosophy of Human Values: Implications for Social Relations in Africa, ed. V. Gumede, 151–174. Johannesburg: Real Publishers/MISTRA. ———. 2017. Ambivalent Union: State-Business Relations and Economic Development in Post-Independent Nigeria. In Coping Strategies of African Business Entrepreneurs, ed. D. Opoku and E. Sandberg, 79–96. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Oloruntoba, Samuel, and Toyin Falola. 2018. Introduction: Contextualising the Debates on Politics, Governance and Development. In Palgrave Handbook of African Politics, Governance and Development, 1–32. New York: Palgrave. Onimode, Bade. 1988. A Political Economy of the African Crisis. London: Zed Books. Polanyi, Karl. 1957. The Great Transformation: The Political Origins of Our Time. Boston: Beacon. Robinson, Williams. 2010. Global Capitalism Theory and the Emergence of Transnational Elites. Working Paper No. 2010/02. Finland: World Institute for Development Economics and Research, United Nations University. Rodney, Walter. 1981. How Europe underdeveloped Africa. 2nd ed. London/Tanzania: L’Ouverture Publications. Rodrik, Dani. 2005. Rethinking Growth Strategies. In Wider Perspectives on Global Development, ed. A.  Shorrocks. New  York: Palgrave Macmillan., https://www. wider.unu.edu/publication/rethinking-growth-strategies Soludo, Charles, and Osita Ogbu. 2004. The Politics of Trade Policy in Africa. In Politics of Trade and Industrial Policy in Africa: Forced Consensus? ed. C. Soludo, O. Ogbu, and H.J. Chang, 111–134. Ottawa: IDRC Books. Soros, George. 1998. The Crisis of Global Capitalism: Open Society Endangered. London: Little Brown and Company. Stiglitz, Joseph. 2002. Globalization and Its Discontents. New York: W.W Norton. ———. 2010. Free Fall: America, Free Market and the Sinking of the World Economy. New York: W.W Norton. Taiwo, Olufemi. 2010. How Colonialism Pre-Empted Modernity in Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ———. 2017. Why Africa Must Become a Center of Knowledge Again. TEDTalk, 19, 2017. Taylor, Ian. 2014. Africa Rising? BRICS-Diversifying Dependency. Suffolk/Rochester: James Currey. Terreblanche, S. 2002. History of Inequality in South Africa: 1652–2002. Pietermaritzburg: KwaZulu Natal University Press. Wariboko, Nimi. 2002. State-Corporation Relationship: Impact on Management Practice. In The Transformation of Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Toyin Falola, ed. A. Oyebade, 289–327. Trenton: Africa World Press. World Bank. 2018. We Were Wrong to Advise Nigeria to Invest Hard in Infrastructure. The Cable News. https://www.thecable.ng/world-bank-wrong-advise-nigeriainvest-infrastructure. Accessed 5 May 2019. Zach-Williams, Alfred, and Giles Mohan. 2007. Imperial, Neo-Liberal Africa? Review of Africa Political Economy 34 (113): 417–422.

PART I

Historical and Theoretical Foundations of African Political Economy

CHAPTER 2

Left, Right and Centre: On Regrounding a Progressive Political Economy of Africa for the Twenty-First Century John S. Saul

What is the best way to think of a relevant political economy for understanding developments in present-day Africa? To begin with, one way must be to imagine a political economy that takes seriously both terms—“political” and “economy”—in the approach chosen. Each emphasis is real, each is necessary. Thus, it is equally as relevant to assess the weight and substance of the class-defined and globally defined nature of production, distribution, and economic inequality as to assess the power-defined nature of political rule and, linked to it, the precise lived parameters of order and entitlement.1 There can be, quite simply, no class reductionism—cast simply in terms of the ownership of the means and the relations of production—in any social analysis that claims to be meaningful and relevant. To my mind, however, defining the class-defined nature of the system of economic production can be/should be an absolutely essential first approximation to any meaningful understanding of the workings of all social systems. And this is, of course, no small matter. At the same time (and however essential), it can only be a first approximation to understanding the workings of any system so over-determined as a society. Thus, it is not only the polity that is real within such a system, other determinants—defined in terms of gender, racial differentiations, religion, national/ethnic belonging, and environmental/ecological concerns, for example—are every bit as real in the pertinent effects they have as are class- and polity-defined variables!2

J. S. Saul (*) Department of Political Science, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 S. O. Oloruntoba, T. Falola (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of African Political Economy, Palgrave Handbooks in IPE, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38922-2_2

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Of course, the Marxist-inclined scholar like myself do assert the quite essential role of an explanatory structure with an emphasis on the production process and class relations in any analysis of diverse societies so explained. And I have myself found such explanations to be essential to grounding the wide range of writing on Africa and particularly South Africa that I have produced over a fifty-year period. Nonetheless, any such analysis can represent at best (as suggested earlier) only a first approximation: however essential and weighty such an analysis may be and however accurate and scientifically coherent its findings. Not that any such approximation should be thought of as being based on some arbitrary whim; rather, at their best and most rigorous, such approximations are based on a careful choice of just what an author seeks most pressingly to know. This is a key point that needs further elaboration here, an elaboration that I provide in the first section. With regard to social theory and the necessary concentration on a self-conscious, announced choice of questions that one chooses to then ask, I find a firm anchor for such an approach in what Hugh Stretton—who was, up until the time of his death in 2015, one of the deepest thinkers on such questions in the social sciences—has termed social science as a “moralizing science.”3 This is, therefore, the idea, the starting point, that I shall now elaborate on.

Political Economy as a “Moralizing Science” Let me first seek to illuminate the central issue involved by citing here the work of several writers who emphasize, like Stretton, a related perspective on the pursuit of knowledge. Marxists and Socialists seek not only to change the world but also to interpret it as scientifically and accurately as is possible. Indeed, their central concerns have given them tools with which to do so. Still, it is appropriate to ask just what, more broadly, is the kind of knowledge these concerns can produce? Lucio Colletti articulated one answer in his notable essay “Marxism: Science or Revolution?”4 Colletti focused on the wage relationship within capitalism and conceded that “bourgeois social science” (as viewed from “the point of view of the capitalist,” as Colletti puts it) offers an understanding of that relationship as a “free exchange.” This understanding is quite plausible and fits neatly into the scientific perspective of neoclassical economics. However, Colletti insisted, equally plausible (and even more pertinent to the cause of socialist revolution) is an understanding of this relationship, “from the viewpoint of the working class,” as one of exploitation. This angle of vision can also offer a revealing (but very different) analysis of the workings of capitalism.5 “The worker’s point of view”? It is tempting to put it like this (not least for purposes of political mobilization), but we can actually advance the case for prioritizing class analysis grounded in Marxist/Socialist premises somewhat more modestly but to even more assertive effect. Stephen Resnick and Richard Wolff, for example, have done this convincingly in their volume Knowledge and Class that rejects both empiricist and rationalist epistemologies while announcing unapologetically that, as Marxists, they choose class analysis as their

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­ referred entry point into social enquiry.6 Interestingly, they make no claim p that this is the only useful approach to society for purposes of theory or practice but assert merely that it is the one they find most illuminating to build from, both analytically and politically: “Class then is [the] one process among the many different processes of life chosen by Marxists as their theoretical entry point so as to make a particular sense of and a particular change in this life.” Resnick and Wolff go on: Why choose class as an entry-point rather than, say, racial or sexual oppression? Our answer may serve to clarify our relations both to Marx and to those people today (including friends) whose entry points and hence theories differ more or less from ours. What Marx sought, and we continue to seek to contribute to struggles for social change, are not only our practical energies but also certain distinctive theoretical insights. The most important of these for us concerns class. Marx discovered, we think, a specific social process that his allies in social struggle had missed. The process in question is the production and distribution of surplus labour in society. Marx’s contribution lay in defining, locating and connecting the class process to all other processes comprising the social totality they all sought to change. Marx’s presumption was that programs for social change had less chance of success to the degree that their grasp of social structure was deficient.7

Note, in addition, that Resnick and Wolff see this way of expressing things as avoiding any kind of reductionism. Instead, it defines Marxism as open to “the mutual overdetermination of both class and non-class” dimensions, and thus to “the complex interdependencies of class and non-class aspects of social life...that neither Marx nor we reduce to cause-effect or determining-­ determined essentialisms.”8 In fact, and even if too-seldom acknowledged, this kind of argument seems not only essential but also straightforward enough. Moreover, even if some social scientists are uncomfortable with the notion of an inevitably “moralizing social science,” the Marxist/Socialist social scientist has every reason to embrace it. After all, is this not what the unity of theory and practice is all about? This is the argument of Gavin Kitching, for example, who writes (approvingly) that Marxism is much less a science than a “point of view,” and, more specifically, a point of view “on or about the form of society that it calls capitalism.”9 For Kitching, “the Marxist point of view” (the term Kitching himself adopts) turns out to be a “rationally motivated willingness to act to transform capitalism.” It has been, Kitching argues, “the ‘objectively best’ point of view to take on capitalism…in order to change it into a better form of society”—and hence the basis for the kind of politics of persuasion and mobilization of interests that could alone make the struggle for socialism viable.10 I find this convincing, even though Kitching himself seems to take his own argument much too far when he suggests that, whatever may be its positive moral-­ cum-­political value, the Marxist point of view does not provide any “privileged means” of understanding the workings of capitalist society and its contradictions. The truth is, as noted earlier, that Marxists and Socialists seek not only

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to change the world but also to interpret it. Their central concerns have indeed given them tools with which to do so. Moreover, this also takes us full circle and back to the basic epistemological argument to which we referred at the outset. It takes us back, in fact, to Stretton’s argument that there is no more meaningful foundation upon which to build a social science than the acknowledgement that social science is—must be—a “moralizing science.” To elucidate this case further, we first make a brief initial reference to another hard-headed methodological pioneer, E. H. Carr and to his seminal text What Is History? Carr tells us to “Study the historian before you begin to study the facts,” since the necessity to establish these basic facts rests not on any quality of the facts themselves, but on an a priori decision of the historian.... It used to be said that the facts speak for themselves. This is, of course, untrue. The facts speak only when the historian calls on them: it is he who decides to which facts to give the floor, and in what order or context.... By and large the historian will get the kind of facts he wants. History means interpretation.11

And where do such choices come from? Not primarily, I would suggest, from some evolving and shifting consensus as to what is pertinent to the best scientific explanations emerging within social science disciplines (even if that can have a certain weight). No, they come, as Hugh Stretton argues in his aforementioned and powerful manual of clear-sighted common sense with regard to methodology, The Political Sciences that they come, inevitably, from moral choices as to what is taken to be important. In short, historical and social sciences are, in Stretton’s phrase, “moralizing sciences,” a point exemplified in his conclusion. He reaches his conclusion after canvassing of a number of diverse approaches to answering, as an example, the question of what caused late nineteenth-century imperialism. His conclusion? Even if his wide range of authors had all agreed to explain the same events and had made no mistakes of fact...it should still be clear that they would have continued to differ from each other. It should also be clear that their diverse purposes—to reform or conserve societies, to condemn or justify past policies, to reinforce theoretical structures—might well have been served by a stricter regard for truth, but could scarcely be replaced by it.... However desirable as qualities of observation, “objectivity” and its last-ditch rearguard “intersubjectivity” still seem unable to organize an explanation or to bring men of different faith to agree about the parts or the shape, the length or breadth or depth or pattern, that an explanation should have.12

In sum, Stretton concludes, “neutral scientific rules [cannot] replace valuation as selectors.” And thus the “scientistic” dream of developing an internally coherent, self-sustaining and (potentially) exhaustive model of society (can be seen to be) not only misguided but dangerous—dangerous in the sense of encouraging a blunting of debate about the “political and moral valuations”

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that necessarily help shape both the questions posed of society and the explanations that contest for our attention regarding social phenomena. Indeed, he then calls for the self-conscious embrace of what he terms a (necessarily) “moralizing [social] science.” We might wish to add that, once the questions themselves have been posed, the social scientist can and must still be judged by his or her peers in terms of the evidence discovered and adduced in the attempt to answer them, and in terms of the logic and coherence of the arguments presented. There are scientific canons of evidence and argument in terms of which explanations can, up to a point, be judged “intersubjectively.” But the questions themselves quite simply do not emerge unprompted from such concerns alone.

From the Left: The Political Economy of the Enragés One must begin an analysis of advanced capitalist societies and of their global impact from a starting point, from a moral premise that sees capitalism as a system premised, most notably, on the extraction of productive labour at a price well below the market value of the good or service that the labour so purchased creates for the capitalist enterprise/employer who pays the wage. A Marxist, understandably enragé (angry), would call a system that premises its relations of production in such a way as being, fundamentally, one committed to the reproduction of tangible social inequality and characterized, at its core, by its indifference to the fact of exploitation. However, it is also one, many Marxists have argued or assumed, that almost inevitably gives rise to class struggle between the owners of the means of production (the capitalist class) and the working class. In theory, the logic of this reading of capitalist-centric social reality is perfectly clear, even compelling, when applied to Africa as well as to the more advanced capitalist world, but, politically, things have not worked out quite so straightforwardly at either end of this spectrum. The “other side” is trying, too, of course. The fact is that the Right tends to have the money, the economic power, and all too often both the overbearing political clout of the state and the salience within the society’s structures of cultural creation that help drive, enforce, and disseminate the practical and normative social preoccupations that give “capitalist common sense” its resonance in the minds and the politics of the less advantaged.13 Indeed, in an overbearingly capitalist world built on the presumed superior logic of possessive individualism, a privatizing and disempowering mindset is pervasive and one that sees each of us as being alone in the marketplace and anxious to get “our share.”—however, unequally, such shares may have proven to be in comparison to the entitlements of other richer and more powerful social claimants. The infamous Right-wing politician Margaret Thatcher perhaps most clearly spelt out this privatizing logic of capitalist ideology when she offered the bold opinion that “There is no such thing as ‘society’; there are individual men and women and there are families.”14 In so far as present s­ ocietal

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developments encourage such a perspective to take hold quite widely, the Marxian world of the primacy of presumed collective and more egalitarian entitlements begins to move further and further away from so-called reality as most people come to know and to experience it! This is, in fact, as true for, say, contemporary African societies as it is for those in the North Atlantic zone—although the precise mix of relevant social actors may vary from society to society. These variations will be linked, in turn, to trends in the structure of stratification that the worldwide hegemony of capitalism has produced: trends that help deflect the logic of class confrontation and that undermine Left solidarity. Most graphic, especially in the Global South, is the fissure among people at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid: between those with fixed employment and a degree of organizational power (e.g. union membership) on the one hand, and those with neither stable employment nor any workplace-based access to socio-political power on the other. I have elsewhere termed this second stratum as “the precariat” and discussed some of implications of such a real dividing line.15 I have also discussed therein the political methods that might begin to facilitate a genuine suturing of such a social lesion before it becomes disabling, which should be done in the interests both of long-term healing and of joint and coordinated political action. And there are other diversities of situation and intention that imply liberating social purposes but, in the absence of broad political, principled, and effectively democratic self-mobilization (again vanguardism need not apply, thank you very much, although there is a role for judicious and open-minded leadership!), never seem to add up into a focused Left movement with truly effective transformative potential. To be sure, these diversities reflect social identifiers whose salience is rooted in differences of gender, sexual preference, race, religion, and ethnic diversity. In all settings, these diversities can and must speak to each other if a progressive social project is ever to become real and widespread and not merely languish forever in the realm of utopian aspiration. In addition, a range of struggles from below focused on the environment and on campaigns for social justice with respect to food, housing, education, health provision, and the like, each signal the pursuit of progressive goals. In short, the continued invocation on the Left of proletarian purpose, important though it undoubtedly can be, is only one card the Left will want to play in the building of a movement that could eventually give an effective voice to diverse progressive pursuits of a more viable, just, and humane future. The difficulty of building the kind of broad, leftist movement that is not deformed by vanguardism of the Stalinist, Trotskyist, arrogant, and undemocratic ultra-­ leftist type should not be understated. It is true multiple contradictions and diverse resistances within capitalist societies north and south do offer the Left a chance to reconcile diversities and work together to more effectively build, on many fronts, a decent society. And yet it remains true that the emergence of any such leftist movement must be an ongoing work in progress (implying hard and imaginative political work!) as such a movement always threatens to self-­ destruct in the toils of rhetoric, self-righteousness, and a narrow definition of

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interests. Its very diversity also suggests that it can be all too readily subverted by both the destructive Right-wing common sense linked to capital logic and by Right-leaning populist, even fascist, mystifications (that also, more tacitly, take capitalist hegemony for granted).16 After all, these were the alternatives offered in the most recent US presidential election by Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, respectively. They were united by a shared silence regarding the actual workings of capitalism; only Bernie Sanders raised any real questions about the issue. We return to such matters in our next section. Meanwhile, we must deal with one additional matter with regard to political economy, be it to the Left, Right, or centre. All societies are affected by the present global reality of capital’s hegemony. Nowhere is this clearer than in Africa where, since the 1960s, decolonization has proven to be false: the United States replaced Europe’s imperial hegemony. Now, as I have argued elsewhere and as numerous other metropoles from China, India, North Korea, Brazil, and other places alongside Europe and North America have emerged to divide the world economy, we begin to see the crystallization of what I have elsewhere called an Empire of Capital: an empire competitive within itself but with a shared commitment to capital’s broad hegemony.17 And the new empire’s junior partners, that is, elites active in both the spheres of the state and entrepreneurial enterprise within each of their national economies. As much as the Right may celebrate this logical outcome of the evermore far-reaching globalization of a worldwide empire of capital, this is the stark and powerful enemy that now confronts each and every struggle to evoke collective and humane purpose throughout the world.18

From the Right and from the Centre The Political Economy of the Entitled Political economy has not historically been a code name for Left-leaning economics, of course. Recall, for example, that much of Marx’s own work was carried out in the name of a “critique of Political Economy” (the subtitle of Marx’s most famous writing: the three-volume Capital). Indeed, when I myself first studied Economics, Political Science, and Sociology at the University of Toronto in the 1950s, all three disciplines were housed under the umbrella of the Department of Political Economy. There, Marx was only rarely mentioned, and the core historical theories offered for intensive study were by Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, and the like.19 Their texts, then, provided the bases—the students’ rite of passage into the political economy of the entitled, as it were—for a more conventionally orthodox and pretty much uncritically capitalist take on the world that then defined the student’s academic work in succeeding undergraduate years. To be sure, the perspective of the Right was soon, and increasingly so, to become more firmly fixed on the more abstract and mathematically driven offspring of these preoccupations.20 Thus, for modern economics (and much of

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political science and sociology), the exploitation that Marxists argue premises capitalism’s production system simply does not exist as a salient, even relevant, category. For the Right, concerns turn almost immediately to the workings of the market, in which virtually everything finds its value weighed in market terms and, in theory, rendered socially intelligible and appropriate by the cut and thrust of competition and by the workings of supply and demand. Quite apart from the opening that the pervasive global ideology of possessive individualism in both advanced capitalist settings and more marginalized ones gives to reconciling many of capitalism’s otherwise bizarre workings, here is a complementary ideological twist that is also of importance. Such guidelines are designed to persuade the unwary that socio-economic inequalities and the widely differentiated rewards that result from no-holds-barred capitalism merely represent a deserved payment for the societal guiding hand that wealthy elites offer. Moreover, the assumed likelihood is that the latter will reinvest their lavish economic rewards in productive ways, an outcome from which all will benefit! In short, the ideological key to such a system is some kind of trickle-down theory that suggests that inequality is the price the rest of us pay for progress. The key “moralizing” premise here shares capital’s benign logic, that capital is the force driving global production, and that capital drives global production to the long-term benefit of us all: east and west, north and south. The complexities of this logic include the extreme polarization between rich and poor in virtually all settings; the recolonization of Africa by the Empire of Capital; and the growing hegemony, within the equation of capital, of financial capital. The movement of money has become even more important than the movement of goods and services. This development has introduced new volatility and instability into the global system.21 As Patrick Bond further writes about the phenomenon of financialization: Reflecting financiers’ political power, even as banks crashed in 2008-11, their lobbies were sufficiently strong that they gained public subsidies for vast bailouts (including Quantitative Easing) worth many trillions of dollars. Their power extends far beyond financial flows, into public policy, often through credit ratings agencies and the Bretton Woods Institutions, especially in Africa. The latest version of Africa’s debt crisis is occurring in the wake of the commodity price crash— partly a function of financial speculators in 2011-15—and the manipulation of African currencies in international markets adds to the misery.22

Nonetheless, it is at these moments that the Right-wing variant of political economy and with it the myth of the magic market spring into action and wave their magic wand to signal that all is well. Not quite well, however. Even in the United States, there is a growing suspicion of capitalism’s workings. These suspicions surfaced in the most recent presidential election and appeared, in the end, in a particularly dark form: a fear-ridden, hatred-driven, Right-wing populist expression of American

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­ ationalism. This has eerie echoes on the Right in Germany, France, the United n Kingdom and elsewhere. In settings in Africa as well as other parts of the Global South, actions and attitudes from below can also cover a diverse range. Some are on the Left, to be sure, but the Left imaginary has not been extremely effective in offsetting other popular responses that stretch from religion-based extremism to Right-populist outbursts, often on ethnic and ultra-nationalist lines, and to more privatized responses to economic disaster (indices of both cynicism and desperation) such as pure criminality and the like. Even some of those on the Right are nervous about such impolite and “unbusinesslike” behaviour: pure, free market, and capitalist-induced moral chaos can produce for them some frightening monsters—and not just from the Left. As for the left itself, this all signals, as suggested earlier, how much more hard political work we have to do in order to tame such monsters, harness the productive system to humane purposes, and achieve anything like what we think to be important in most settings in the world. The Political Economy of the Afterthought Of course, for many people at the centre, including Left-leaning liberals or social democrats, the market cannot be granted such total authority in determining the social outcomes that many on the Right are seen to advocate. For those at the centre, the outcomes driven by the logic of sheer economic determinacy will sometimes seem too narrowly defined, which merely factors out many preferred social outcomes that have been allowed to stand unchallenged. More centrist politicians, those unwilling to challenge capital logic in more fundamental ways, are quite prepared, it would appear, to see continued state funding of any activities in various sectors of social life deemed too welfarist as an unwarranted collectivist intrusion. They will now argue, as the state funding of social provisions are inevitably slashed, the importance of increased charity as an antidote to the structural unfairness of some outcomes.23 Or, more daringly, they will argue for the continuing provision by the state of some range of societal entitlements, but the terms are almost invariably quite stringent and limited by one guiding premise: capital will do the heavy lifting in the profitable productive sphere, while centre-Left worthies will do what they can with the returns. From the beseeching of charitable provision, both local and international, and with such conscience money as can be pried away from the government to subsidize ameliorative efforts in such spheres as those of housing, food, health, public transportation, environmental protection and the like. This is the political economy of the centre, the political economy of the afterthought, then: a skimming off something from the top of capitalist profits in order to humanize, minimally, societal outcomes. And yet the inequalities stoked by such choices retain staggering proportions, even as they also grow precipitously. This is not particularly a “brave” new world then. In sum, the embrace by the centre-Left and of its common-sense acceptance of (or resignation to) capitalist hegemony is extremely deeply embedded, and

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capitalism itself does seem so strong, so ascendant, in so many pertinent ways— economically, politically, culturally—that the dream of its demise appears to be just that: a leftist dream. So maybe the centre-Left is correct: capitalism is just too big a problem and too strong a system, both globally and locally, for us really to expect to wrestle it to the ground. Some state elites are just too bloodthirsty and power hungry to take lightly any strong opposition: better to chip away to realize some apparently small gains for collective decency. But perhaps even such a realistic approach can be mounted in such a way as to have revolutionary point and purpose. Here I have found the approach, which I characterize as the active pursuit of structural reform, as identified by the likes of André Gorz and Boris Kagarlitzky, to be a promising formulation.24 A way to make real revolution slowly but surely is to make it incrementally, less dangerously and less provocatively. However, depending on just how intransigent the resistance to the real transformation of those in power is, this approach is more likely to be successful than more dramatic calls for revolution, as a leftist strategy is likely to be. Here the crucial distinction is between structural reform and “mere social-democratic reformism”—the first of these alternatives being characterized by two chief attributes: The first is the insistence that any reform, to be structural, must not be comfortably self-contained (a mere “improvement”) but must, instead, be allowed self-­ consciously to implicate other “necessary” reforms that follow from it as part of an emerging and on-going project of structural transformation in a coherently left-ward direction. The second is that a structural reform cannot come from on high: instead it must root itself in popular initiatives in such a way as to leave a residue of further empowerment—in terms of growing enlightenment/self-­ consciousness and in terms of organizational capacity—for the vast mass of the population who thus strengthen themselves for further struggles, further victories: [As Gorz writes,] “the emancipation of the working class [and its allies] can become a total objective only if in the course of the struggle they have learned something about self-management, initiative and collective decision – in a word, if they have had a foretaste of what emancipation means.”25

Can we imagine building a movement that is both long-term wise and short-term smart as this strategy implies. It is certainly not going to be easy, but no one ever said facing down the hulk of capital that presently bestrides the world was easy. Perhaps capitalists, as powerful and ill-intentioned as they generally are (and as their very system, premised on the pursuit of profit, forces them to be) are more likely to win than the rest of us—even as they destroy the world, environmentally and morally, in the process. But this is the struggle between the Left and Right, two strands of the political economy and the world of struggle about the future of capitalism and of humanity that they have helped to define and to mould. And it is not over. Indeed, it continues.

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Notes 1. Godwin Onuoha writes ironically of a “rising Africa” in the context of the dramatic rip-off that resource extraction by global capitalism has become for Africa in this century. See Onuoha, “A ‘Rising Africa’ in a Resource-rich Context: Change, Continuity and Implications for Development,” Current Sociology, 64, no. 2 (2016): 277–292. Indeed, this pattern has only continued to intensify in Africa’s post-liberation period. 2. See also Shirin M.  Rai and Georgina Waylen, eds., New Frontiers in Feminist Political Economy (New York: Routledge, 2014); John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, and Richard York, eds., The Ecological Rift (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2011). 3. See Hugh Stretton, The Political Sciences: General Principles of Selection in Social Science and History (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961). Since I first read it in the 1960s, this book has been of immense importance to the development of the epistemology that became crucial to my own scientific work. In addition, I must also reference the work of several African-based writers and activists, including Frantz Fanon (Fanon was actually from Martinique, but became most noted as both a militant and a thinker in and about Africa), Amilcar Cabral, Julius Nyerere, and Steve Biko, among others. 4. Lucio Colletti, “Marxism: Science or Revolution,” in Ideology in Social Science: Readings in Critical Social Theory, edited by Robin Blackburn (Glasgow: Fontana/Collins, 1972). 5. Colletti argues in this respect: “I would say that there are two realities in capitalism: the reality expressed by Marx and the reality expressed by the authors he criticizes” (Ibid., 375). 6. Stephen A. Resnick and Richard D.  Wolff, Knowledge and Class: A Marxian Critique of Political Economy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987). Resnick and Wolff explain that “[b]y entry points we mean that particular concept a theory uses to enter into its formulation, its particular construction of the entities and relations that comprise the social totality” (p. 25). 7. Ibid., 279. 8. Ibid., 281. This approach can also lead to very soft definitions of capitalism and anti-capitalist struggle. The work J. K. Gibson, The End of Capitalism (As We Knew It) (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1996) is worth noting but, for me at least, Gibson’s soft definitions do not undermine its merits, quite the contrary. 9. Gavin Kitching, Marxism and Science: Analysis of an Obsession (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994), 168. 10. All quotes in Ibid., 169–70. 11. E. H. Carr, What is History? (New York: Albert A. Knopf, 1962), 26. 12. Stretton, The Political Sciences, 141. 13. See Evan Watkins, Everyday Exchanges: Marketwork and Capitalist Common Sense (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998). 14. Thatcher quoted in an interview that appeared in the British magazine Women’s Own (London), September 23, 1987. 15. See my chapter “The New Terms of Resistance: Proletariat, Precariat and the Present African Prospect” in Accumulations, Crises, Struggles: Capital and Labour in Contemporary Capitalism, edited by Baris Karagaac (Zurich and Berlin: LIT VERLAG, 2013) and also as chapter 5 in my A Flawed Freedom:

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Rethinking Southern African Liberation (London: Pluto Books; Toronto; Between the Lines’ Cape Town: Juta/University of Cape Town Press, 2014). 16. Jan-Werner Muller, What is Populism? (New York: Penguin Random House, 2017). 17. See my On Writing and Acting on the Premise that the Struggle Continues (forthcoming), specifically chapter 2, “In Theory: A Moralizing Science,” and especially that chapter’s sub-section C “Entry-Point 2: The Empire of Capital and Recolonization.” Also see Chapter 3 “In Theory: The Dialectic of Hope,” and specifically the subsection, “Entry-Point 8: The Science of Hope.” 18. Thus, Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin’s valuable tome The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of American Empire emphasizes (mistakenly I feel) that, right up to the present moment, the world dances to the tune of the ever-increasing ascendancy of American capital. Me, I cannot, for the life of me, see “Global Capitalism” and the “American Empire” as being the same thing (although their book and its title clearly imply that they are). No, it is an “Empire of Capital” with which we are dealing, one within which the United States is, indeed, a major player but very far from being the absolute global hegemon (and certainly not under the leadership of Donald Trump!). Note, however, that Panitch and Gindin also emphasize that “the continuing inequalities as well as the insecurities that the state’s promotion of capitalist markets within each country, and the protest and revolts that this provokes, provide fertile ground for the replanting of an alternative to global capitalism” (p. 339). Of course, they can also lead (as witness Donald Trump’s ascendancy) to “right-wing populism” and the seeds of fascism. The answer? Organize, organize, organize. 19. There were singular exceptions, of course, not least the noted Professor of Politics in the then-Department of Political Economy Brough Macpherson, author of The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism (reprint, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). Indeed, this book, which was still in manuscript form at the time, served as the textbook for Macpherson’s mind-bending graduate class in political theory of which I was privileged to be a member. Others who linked economics to tangible historical concerns include H.  A. Innis, a Professor of Political Economy at the University of Toledo; Karl Helleiner; and Mel Watkins. 20. Indeed, as such, arithmetic reductionism began also to resonate quite noticeably in both political science and sociology, one of my old politics professors at Princeton professors, A. E. W. Mason, ironically counselled us in his class in the early 1960s, “In political science, if you want to get it wrong, add it up”! 21. As Patrick Bond, in a personal communication dated May 26, 2018, defines this latter process: “Financialization is witnessed in the relative decline of productive sector investment and profitability and, instead, the increased role of debt, financial speculation, deregulated forms of money, and illicit banking activities as a share of economic activity.” For a more detailed analysis of the overall financialization phenomenon, see Panitch and Gindin, The Making of Global Capitalism. 22. Patrick Bond, personal communication (op. cit). 23. There is nothing wrong, per se, with charity perhaps, especially as it affects provisioning of the arts and the like. However, in advanced capitalist settings, charity is self-consciously evoked by our rulers as a substitute for collective (state) provisioning (thus also, in effect, decertifying a range of numerous essential and

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services that facilitate equality in what are/should be clearly public spheres). This further yields to the corporate logic of weakening the rights attendant upon ­citizenship as well as move towards minimizing the legitimate social claims that citizenship could (and should!) imply. 24. See Andre Gorz, Socialism and Revolution (New Haven, CT: Anchor, 1973), especially the chapter “Socialism and Revolution”; Boris Kagarlitsky, The Dialectic of Change (London: Verso, 1998); and John S. Saul’s forthcoming On Writing and Acting on the Premise that the Struggle Continues, especially chapter 3 and the section “Entry-point 7: Socialism, Democracy and the Struggle that Continues.” 25. See Andre Gorz, Socialism and Revolution (New Haven: Anchor, 1973). This particular quote also appears in my chapter “Is Socialism Still an Alternative?” in John S.  Saul, Liberation Lite: The Roots of Recolonization in Southern Africa (Delhi; Trenton, N. J.: Three Essays Collective; Africa World Press, 2011), 95.

CHAPTER 3

Four Journeys of Capital and Their Consequences for Africa Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni

Introduction The question of the African political economy is an old and perennial concern but one that requires new insights. It is not a tale of microhistories because whatever happens in Africa in the domain of political economy entails understanding macrohistories of the entire modern world system and its shifting global orders.1 At the centre of African political economy (the very convergence of politics and economy) is the rampaging journey of capital and the world division of labour. This remaking of the modern world system and its global orders explains the perennial question of how Africa came to occupy a subaltern position in the modern world system and global order since the fifteenth century. This chapter deploys Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s conception of the four “journeys of capital,” namely the slave trade; the slave plantation system; colonialism; and global debt slavery to explain how Africa increasingly became entrapped in global coloniality. Entrapment as a concept speaks to two predicaments for Africa. At one level, it highlights an invidious position occupied by Africa within global coloniality, characterized by being simultaneously at the centre and at periphery of the modern world capitalist system. At another level, it underscores discursive entanglement of Africa in global colonial/imperial/ capitalist matrices of power that sustains an asymmetrical global architecture and configuration of power, whereby even anti-systemic resistance and extra-­ structural agency are deeply shaped by the metaphysical/cognitive empire, long after the dismantling of the direct, physical empire. S. J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni (*) Leadership and Transformation Department, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa © The Author(s) 2020 S. O. Oloruntoba, T. Falola (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of African Political Economy, Palgrave Handbooks in IPE, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38922-2_3

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The Africanist historian Frederick Cooper posed the question: “How did the relationship of Africa to Europe come to be so asymmetrical?”2 This chapter offers a response to this long-standing question as it lays bare the core problems within African political economy. The first part of the chapter introduces the concept of entrapment. The second section provides the conceptual/ theoretical terrain of the concept’s unfolding and brings into dialogue Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s four journeys of capital, with Karl Marx’s distillation of the four foundational events in the “rosy dawn of capitalism”; Aime Cesaire’s five ways in which modernity/coloniality worked to destroy existing civilizations, cultures, and economies outside Europe; Ramon Grosfoguel’s nine heterarchies of power; and Ali A. Mazrui’s six forms of entrapment of Africa in the evolving modern world capitalist system. The third section articulates the eight epochs of entrapment of Africa from the time of the slave trade to the present time of coloniality of markets. The chapter does not in any way present a continent and a people as mere victims in the making of modern world system and its global orders. Rather, it highlights the structural straitjacket of coloniality within which African people have been launching resistance and leveraging weak points and fissures to their advantage.

Africa Inside the Spider Web of Global Coloniality The spider web of coloniality is called the colonial matrices of power. Walter D. Mignolo defined the colonial matrices of power as “a complex structure of management and control composed of domains, levels and flows” and as a “theoretical concept that helps make visible what is invisible to the naked (or rather the nontheoretical) eye.”3 The theoretical concept begins by revealing that coloniality is constitutive of modernity (there is no modernity without coloniality). This means that the positive rhetoric of modernity is always hiding the negative called global coloniality.4 The colonial matrix of power unfolded in terms of control of economy, authority, subjectivity, and knowledge.5 Theo-­ politics initially framed the colonial matrices of power, then ego-politics (philosophy), racist science, and today mainstream media sustain these matrices as they disseminate the rhetoric of modernity and its pretensions of salvation. The political economy of Africa is fundamentally a tale of how the continents and its people were dragged into the evolving and unfolding global coloniality through such processes as enslavement, mercantilism and colonialism. This is the tale of entrapment of Africa, which captures the paradoxical situation of the continent: that of “simultaneous involvement and marginalization” in the modern world system, modern global order, modern knowledge economy, and modern world economy.6 Entrapment highlights how a colonized people exist as a human species that have been dragged kicking and screaming into the nexus of the modern world system, modern global order, modern knowledge economy, modern world economy and forcible conversion to Christianity. What emerged from this is an invidious position of not just of

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being pushed to the periphery but also of being insiders who have been pushed outside of the very human ecumene/family.7 The unfolding of modern history some 500 years ago unleashed colonialities of space (cartography and settlement), time (cutting it into linear pre-­ modern and modern conceptions), human species/being (social classification and racial hierarchization), nature (turning it into a natural resource), knowledge (theft of history, epistemicides, and linguicides) and power/authority (asymmetrical configurations and legal codification of difference). Human history itself acquired a new definition and meaning. In Eduard Galeano’s analysis, human history became understood in imperial categories of competition, rivalry, and survival of the fittest.8 This redefinition of history announced the arrival of Euro-North American hegemonic aspirations predicated not only on the paradigms of difference and war but on legitimation of enslaving, pillaging, colonizing, and as well entrapping some human beings within the grand imperial designs of the emerging Euro-North American-centric world system, world order, and world capitalist economy. In this modernist-, capitalist-, and imperial-oriented definition of human history, unequal development, underdevelopment, inequalities, and poverty were explained as nothing other than a sign of Africans’ inherent primitive nature or their failure to effectively compete. Paget Henry wrote about how human history assumed the character of “a Faustian/imperial struggle to subdue all nature and history. This was an insurrectionary rapture with the established cosmic order of things that inaugurated a new era in the relations between the European ego and the world.”9 This radical shift, according to Henry, described the globalization of “the European project of existence,” the “weaken[ing] the powers of the gods, relocated Europeans at the center of this new world,” and the “reinvent[ion] the rest of the non-European world ‘into one of its subordinate peripheries.’”10 Peripherization is a technology of coloniality. Peripherization works as a technology of coloniality by forcing certain groups to remain inside the orbit of modernity and coloniality. Peripherization is a form of reinvention into a subaltern position. At the political level, entrapment entailed lodgment into coloniality of power.11 Entrapment in the coloniality of power began with physical conquest and then dragging the colonized into the nexus of modern racial global asymmetrical power relations. This entrapment continues to disadvantage Africa and the rest of the Global South today. At the epistemological level, entrapment entailed epistemicides, linguicides, cultural imperialism, appropriations, and “theft of history,” resulting in coloniality of knowledge.12 At the intersubjective level, entrapment involved tweaking with ontology itself resulting in what became known as coloniality of being.13 This form of entrapment materialized through social classification of human species in accordance with assumed differential ontological densities and racial hierarchization of humanity. At the material level, a world capitalist economy that survives on exploitation of natural and human resources fished in Africa in particular, and in the

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Global South in general for cheap labour, cheap raw materials, and open markets. Global coloniality entraps modern subjects within the racialised and imperial international system as well as the colonial, capitalist and patriarchal global order. Mahmood Mamdani delved deeper into the colonial technologies of reproduction of “citizens” and “subjects”—technologies and processes that also determined the consciousness of the colonized and forms, formats, and grammars of resistance. He posited that “com[ing] to grips with the specific nature of power through which the population of subjects excluded from civil society was actually ruled” entails understanding “how the subject population was incorporated into—and not excluded from—the arena of colonial power.”14 His key thesis is that “every movement against decentralized despotism bore the institutional imprint of the mode of rule” and that “Every movement of resistance was shaped by the very structure of power against which it rebelled” (Mamdani 1996: 24). This is what I mean by discursive entrapment.

The Four Journeys of Capital and Entrapment of Africa In his book entitled Secure the Base: Making Africa Visible in the Globe, Ngugi wa Thiong’o articulated how Africa has been kept captive by capital from the time of the slave trade to the current age of debt slavery: Unfortunately, Africa fares the worst, despite or because of the fact that the continent has always been a player in the development of the modern capitalist world. Each moment in the journey of capital has Africa as a captive. Under the slave trade, the African body becomes a commodity. Under the ensuing slave plantation system, Africa supplies unpaid labour that works the sugar and cotton fields. Under colonialism, Africa supplies raw materials—gold, diamonds, copper, uranium, coffee and cocoa—without having control over the prices. Under the new global situation of debts, debt servicing and conditionality, Africa is weighed down by debt slavery. Just as Africa became a net exporter of the labour it most needed for its own development and the net exporter of minerals and raw materials it most needed for its own development, today, under debt slavery, Africa becomes the net exporter of the very capital it most needs…. In relation to Africa, slavery is the continuous theme in the journey of capital: the plantation dissolving into colonial rule dissolving into debt slavery.15

Before Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Karl Marx sets the tone on the entrapment of the Global South in colonial/racial capitalism when he categorically stated that the “rosy” dawn of the era of capitalism was predicated on four specific events and processes: “the discovery of gold and silver in America”; “the uprooting, enslavement and entombment in the mines of aboriginal population”; “the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies”; and “the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercialized hunting of black skins.”16 No one captured the processes of disruption, dispossession, and entrapment as eloquently as Aime Cesaire. In poetic language, Cesaire articulated four

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modes of disruptions and entrapment. The first related to draining of the essence of colonized societies through trampling over their cultures, undermining their institutions, confiscating their land, smashing their religions, destroying their “magnificent artistic creations,” and wiping out their “extraordinary possibilities.”17 What was imposed after these dehumanizing processes is economic extractivism, ontological extractivism, and epistemological extractivism.18 The second entailed the tearing and severing of the colonized “from their gods, their land, their habits, their life—from life, from the dance, from wisdom.”19 This process amounted to alienation as a form of entrapment. The third colonial intervention entailed instilling fear on the colonized “who have been taught to have an inferiority complex, to tremble, kneel, despair, and behave like flunkeys.” The last colonial device described by Cesaire is that of extractivism, dispossession, and disruptions of: natural economies that have been disrupted—harmonious and viable economies adapted to the indigenous population—about food crops destroyed, malnutrition permanently introduced, agricultural development oriented solely towards the benefit of the metropolitan countries; about the looting of products, looting of raw materials.20

Ali A. Mazrui added his voice to the important issue of entrapment of Africa in global coloniality. He identified six forms of entrapment of Africa in global coloniality. The forcible incorporation of Africa into the world capitalist economy according to Mazrui began with the enslavement of black people “which dragged African labour itself into the emerging international capitalist system.”21 This constitutes the first layer of entrapment. The slave labour from Africa contributed immensely to the making of the transatlantic economic nerve centre and to the rise of Europe and North America as among the most developed nations of the world. The second entrapment took the form of exclusion of Africa from the developing and new nation-state sovereignty system that emerged in 1648 making the continent available for partitioning in 1884–1885. Mazrui noted that Africa was only incorporated into the world system of nation-states after 1945 with the rise of the United Nations sovereign state global order.22 As is demonstrated later, even the post-1945 incorporation of Africa into the world system entailed entrapment in the lowest echelons of asymmetrical global power relations. Mazrui identified linguistic entrapment of Africa as another major challenge.23 His thinking on linguistic entrapment is similar to that of Ngugi wa Thiong’o who depicted Africa as suffering from a “linguistic encirclement,” which manifested itself in a continent and a people who defined “themselves in terms of the languages of Europe: English-speaking, French-speaking, or Portuguese-speaking African countries.”24 There are six modern imperial languages that have been imposed on Africa in particular, and the Global South in general: Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, English, French, and German. At a

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fourth level, to Mazrui, Africa was incorporated into a heavily skewed ­Western-­centric international law that constituted another enduring entrapment.25 The fifth layer of entrapment, according to Mazrui, is that of incorporation of Africa into “the modern technological age,” which entailed being “swallowed by the global system of dissemination of information.”26 Finally, Africa has been dragged into and entrapped in a Western-centric moral order predicated on Christianity as a hegemonic world religion. Building on this analysis, Mazrui concludes that “what Africa knows about itself, what different parts of Africa know about each other, have been profoundly influenced by the West.”27 Grosfoguel deepened our understanding of entrapment when he distilled nine interrelated, overlapping and intertwined heterarchies of power. The first lever of coloniality of power entailed the making of “a particular global class formation” serviced by “diverse forms of labour” (including “slavery, semi-­ serfdom, wage-labour, petty-commodity production”) and entangled with the functioning practice of how “capital as a source of production of surplus value through the selling of commodities for a profit in the world market.” The invention of “international division of labour of core and periphery where capital organized labour in the periphery” through coercion and deployment of other authoritarian means is another important layer of coloniality of power. The third invention is that of ordering the modern world into an “inter-state system of proto-military organizations controlled by European males and institutionalized in colonial administrations.” The fourth discernible aspect of coloniality of power manifested itself in the form of a “global racial/ethnic hierarchy that privileges European people over non-European people,” together with a “global gender hierarchy that privileges males over female and European patriarchy over other forms of gender relations.”28 In the social domain, a “sexual hierarchy that privileges heterosexuals over homosexuals and lesbians” and a “spiritual hierarchy that privileges Christians over non-Christians/non-Western spiritualities institutionalized in the globalization of the Christian (Catholic and later Protestant) church” are also discernible as inventions of modernity/coloniality in Grosfoguel’s analysis.29 In the epistemic and linguistic domain, Grosfoguel identifies “an epistemic hierarchy that privileges Western knowledge and cosmology over non-Western knowledge and cosmologies, and institutionalized in the global university system” and a “linguistic hierarchy between European languages and non-­ European languages that privileges communication and knowledge/theoretical production in the former and subalternized the latter as sole producers of folklore or culture but not knowledge/theory.”30 Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni also contributed to the deeper understanding of how Africa became entrapped in global coloniality. He identifies eight epochs that are constitutive of Africa’s entrapment in global coloniality. The first important epoch ran from the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries: the “paradigm of discovery and mercantilist order.”31 The slave trade and mercantilist commerce formed the nerve centre of the epoch. This epoch practically laid down

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the framework of entrapment of Africa, Latin America, Asia, and other parts of the Global South into the evolving Euro-North American-Atlantic commercial system that included even the selling and buying of black human beings and later the indenturing of “yellow” and “brown” people (Chinese and Indians) in the modern racialization discourse of imperialism and capitalism. However, as understood from an African historical perspective, the Europeans’ discovery paradigm and mercantilist order began to envelop Africa in 1415 when Portugal invaded the port of Ceuta in North Africa.32 Ceuta formed a bridgehead for further Portuguese imperial expansion; the Portuguese had wanted to challenge Muslim dominance in North Africa and the broader Mediterranean region that had been in place since the seventh century. Carrie Gibson highlights the strategic importance of Ceuta: Ceuta was a small, peninsular outpost in North Africa with a fortress; it was not a dazzling jewel city like, like Grenada. But what it lacked in splendor it made up for in bustling trade. In Henry’s [‘Henry the Navigator’] time this port was known for its commerce in wheat and gold. Ceuta sat at a crucial location; mirrored by the rock of Gibraltar in the north, it was the Southern part of the ‘Pillars of Hercules’—the gateway to the commercial world of the Mediterranean. It was also the exit to the terrifying and mostly unknown waters of the Atlantic.… Many people believed that Ceuta was the last link in the long supply chain that connected the Mediterranean with the rumored riches that lay deep in the unknown African interior.… Into the mix of grain, gold and God would also be added the figure of Prester John, a mythical Christian who had travelled to a faraway land (often Ethiopia), where he had become king and had access to enough gold and silver to defeat all enemies of Christendom. Henry certainly appeared to believe the story. He thought that by securing Ceuta, the Portuguese would not only have a stronghold in the Muslim Mediterranean and access to wheat supplies, but that they could then penetrate into the hinterland, find Prester John, and share in his riches.33

The discovery paradigm and the mercantilist order inaugurated a commercial shift from the Mediterranean-centred economy to the Atlantic-centred economy, linking western Africa, the eastern coasts of North Africa and South America, as well as the Atlantic coastline of Europe and North Africa. At the same time that the Spanish Atlantic sphere extended to the Pacific, the Philippines, and China, the Portuguese created the Indian Ocean sphere, which extended to the East Indies. Eventually, four continents (Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas) were linked together through economic activities, migrations of people and selling of human beings as slaves.34 Exploration, discovery, cultural/colonial encounters, conquest, taking control of trade routes, human trafficking, and migration of Europeans to other parts of the world constituted the mercantile order. As indicated in the previous section, the first leading imperial powers were Portugal, Spain, Holland, and Britain, France, and others joined them. The Arabs were also very active in what became known as the slave trade. Explorers, merchants, hunters, and mis-

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sionaries were active on the ground. Walter Rodney emphasized that what were generally described as explorers were in actual fact the early scramblers for Africa: “Make no mistake about it; gentlemen like Carl Peters, Livingstone, Stanley, Harry Johnston, De Brazza, General Gordon and their masters in Europe were literally scrambling for Africa. They barely avoided a major military conflagration.”35 Merchant companies such as the Dutch East India Company formed in 1602, British Company of Royal Adventurers Trading in Africa formed in 1660; French West Indies Company/Senegal Company formed in 1664; and British Royal Africa Company formed in 1672 dominated the mercantile order. The extensive powers granted to these chartered companies included enslaving, conquest, and colonization. Christopher Kinsey provided the best description of these chartered companies: The sixteenth century saw the creation of a new type of commercial entity, the mercantile company. Chartered by the state to engage in long-distance trade and establish colonies, the mercantile company drove European imperialism for the next 350 years. They were unusual institutions in that they distorted the distinction between economics and politics, non-state and state, property rights and sovereignty, and public and private. As a consequence of these distortions, they presented their rulers with complex dilemmas.36

The expansion to the Indian Ocean commenced with the two voyages of discovery. The first was by Bartolomeu Dias in 1488 and the second by Vasco da Gama in 1498. Da Gama’s successful circumnavigation to the southern tip of the African continent to reach the East Indies. To get a clear grasp of the unfolding of the paradigm of discovery and the creation of a mercantilist order, one needs to get the sequence of historical events clearly. Even though Kwame Nimako and Glenn Willemsen characterized the age of mercantilism as the “age of banditry,” the period had its own underpinning ideology and philosophy of doing things.37 A paradigm of discovery framed it and accumulation of bullion was its modus operandi. According to Terreblanche: Mercantilism was based on the idea, or ideology, that wealth, especially in the form of precious metals, was finite and that it was essential for a particular European country to experience as large as possible an influx of wealth and precious metals to the detriment of other European and non-European countries. The logical consequence of this mercantilist philosophy was that both war and trade—or whatever other methods of looting—could and should be implemented rigorously to ensure that a particular country could be on the winning side of what was essentially a zero-sum game.38

Sampie Terreblanche correctly emphasized that the unequal development, underdevelopment, and even non-development of that part of the world that experienced European domination has to be explained by taking into account “the severity of the exploitation, repression and destruction directed at Western

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peoples by Western empires, Western capitalism, Western industrialization, Western war-making and Western propaganda.”39 Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Britain, France, Belgium, Italy, and the United States have been actively at the forefront of modern empire building, with some countries beginning as early as 1500. Spain and Portugal (the Iberian nations), supported by the Catholic Church, were active during the first phase of empire building from 1500 to 1630. They fanned out into the Americas, Asia, and Africa during the mercantilist phase, and they were also actively involved enslavement of black people. The age of Spanish and Portuguese empire building coincided with internal transformations in Europe, taking the form of disintegration of feudal theocratic/divine monarchs and the emergence of capitalism driven by the emerging bourgeois class. What distinguished the period of Spanish and Portuguese empire building is what is termed mercantilism: The guiding principle for European empire building was that trade should always be in surplus to provide a stream of bullion for the mother country.… The obsession with precious metals was closely linked to another unique characteristic of Spanish imperialism, i.e. the culture of conquest. Driven by this culture the Spaniards conquered the whole of Latin America (excluding Brazil) and parts of North America—now part of the United States—without developing their huge new land mass.… At the end of the eighteenth century Spain had the largest, most powerful and longest surviving empire in the Americas. In its territorial extent, it was the true modern rival of the Roman Empire.40

Portuguese expansion displayed a combination of religious zealotry, insatiable commercial appetite, geopolitical grandstanding, and hegemonic aspirations in its efforts to defeat the Moslems and take over their commercial spheres of influence. Fortified trade bases in Asia and Africa solidified Portuguese empire building. Chinese and Moslems in Asia had strong militaries that did not make conquest an easy option for Portugal. Portugal dominated and controlled the Asian trade zone. In Africa, “[f] or a period of over 400 years[,] Portugal was a big player in the slave trade” and, in Brazil, the Portuguese empire “became important in the seventeenth century after gold was discovered there.”41 Grosfoguel and Cervantes-Rodriguez emphasized that: The capitalist world-system was formed by the Spanish/Portuguese expansion to the Americas in the long sixteenth century…. The first modernity (from 1492 to 1650) built the foundations of the racist/colonial culture and global capitalist system that we are living today.… The Spanish and Portuguese expansion to the Americas was crucial for the construction of the racial categories that would later be generalized to the rest of the world.… The myth of the ‘superiority’ of the ‘civilized’ Westerners/Europeans over the ‘uncivilized’ non-Europeans, based on racial narratives on ‘superior/inferior’ peoples and cosmovisions was constructed in this period.42

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However, intra-European wars, such as the Eighty Years’ War between Spain and Holland and the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), affected the empire-­ building adventures of the Spanish and the Portuguese. The next phase of empire building was led by the Netherlands (1648–1713). After the Thirty Years’ War, the Westphalian Treaty of 1648 created the Netherlands, a modern nation-state with imperial aspirations. It took advantage of the fact that Germany emerged damaged from the war and that Britain and France were engrossed in what Terreblanche termed “the mercantilist struggle for hegemony in the seventeenth century.”43 The Dutch Republic replaced Portugal and Spain in intercontinental trade and began to expand into an empire: In Asia the Dutch conquered the Portuguese and established profitable trading and looting posts. On the Atlantic, the Dutch plundered the Spanish silver fleets and in Europe they plundered the Genoese caravans transporting precious metals overland from Seville to Antwerp.44

By 1650, Amsterdam had become the centre of the world having emerged from the seventeenth-century mercantilist wars “remarkably successful.”45 The Dutch East India Company (VOC) lay at the centre of Dutch empire building. The VOC was formed in 1602 as a chartered company. Terreblanche argued that “[t]he VOC can be regarded as one of the first MNCs [multinational corporations]. It was a real ‘octopus,’ with tentacles in international trade, piracy, the slave trade and colonialism.”46 The VOC conquered the world for the Dutch until it collapsed in 1799 due to bankruptcy. The British led the next empire-building process during the period from 1775 to 1945. Looting the resources of the Global South produced the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution gave Britain the edge over other countries. Just like the Dutch, the British formed the British East India Company, and it survived for almost 300 years (1600–1874). Thus, according to Nimako and Willemsen: If the period between 1492 and the Peace of Westphalia (1648), including the Thirty Years’ War (1618-48), can be characterized as the age of banditry in relation to chattel slavery, the period between the Peace of Westphalia and the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 can be characterized as the age of sovereignty.47

What the age of sovereignty tried to put to rest was the paradigm of war that dominated during the mercantile period. The key wars include Reconquista aimed at defeating the Muslims (Moors)—a long war lasting for centuries until the fall of Grenada in 1492—followed by conquest of the Americas, the Eighty Years’ War (1568–1648), the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), the Nine Years’ War (1689–1698), and the Spanish War of Succession (1701–1714).48

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The second epoch is the Westphalian order that commenced in 1648 and is credited for laying the foundation of the modern idea of the sovereign nation-­ state system. The Westphalian order cuts across other orders as the notion of nation-state is still ubiquitous across the modern world. As Wendy Brown explains: To speak of a post-Westphalian order is not to imply an era in which nation-state sovereignty is either finished or irrelevant. Rather, the prefix ‘post’ signifies a formation that is temporally after but not over that to which it is affixed. ‘Post’ indicates a very particular condition of afterness in which what is past is not left behind, but, on the contrary, relentlessly conditions, even dominates a present that nevertheless also breaks in some way with this past.49

The people of Africa were not considered worth of national sovereignty that was introduced at Westphalia. This made them vulnerable to conquest and colonization. The decision to only bestow national sovereignty to emerging European states and to exclude Africa portended the scramble and the partitioning of Africa in the nineteenth century. According to Nimako and Willemsen, “For the ‘outside world,’ the importance of the Peace of Westphalia lay not in the reciprocal recognition of the sovereignty of the signatories, but rather in the non-recognition of the sovereignty of others.”50 Thus, the logical third epoch is here rendered as the “Berlin consensus,” which commenced with the 1884–1885 Berlin Conference. Adekeye Adebajo depicts it as “the curse of Berlin” because it legitimized and galvanized the scramble for Africa; heightened the conquest of Africa; and enabled the partitioning, dismemberment, and fragmentation of Africa into various colonies.51 Today, Africa finds itself entrapped within boundaries drawn and decided upon by colonizers in Berlin. The Berlin consensus portended the physical empire and its colonial governmentality. The fourth important epoch is that of the age of colonial governmentality, which involved the practical implementation of dismembering processes of dispossession and production of unique African colonial subjectivity: people denied rights, devoid of privileges of citizens, and subject to the establishment of direct colonial administrations. These direct forms of colonial administrations were known by different names, such as Concessionaire/Company Rule, Assimilation/Association, Lusotropicalism, Indirect/Direct Rule, and Apartheid.52 For Mamdani, the character of colonial governmentality was the practice of defining the colonized for the purposes of ruling over them.53 At the economic level, colonial governmentality produced what Samir Amin termed the “three macro-regions” of colonial economic formations and inventions.54 The first was the economie de traite implemented in West Africa. It involved changing the production direction from food crops to cash crops for export. This shift was imposed on peasants without dispossessing them of land. Agricultural production concentrated on four export crops: cocoa, oil palm, cotton, and groundnuts.55 What colonialism created in West Africa became

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known as peasant trade colonies, which were predicated on peasant commodity production. It meant that peasants were entrapped in the colonial cash economy. Food security suffered in the process. What further worsened the situation in West Africa is that, in countries like Ghana, imposed peasant commodity production was also accompanied by land expropriations for mining purposes. This complicates the typology offered by Amin. The second colonial economic invention, according to Amin, is the “labour reserve” colonies.56 These types of colonies stretched from East Africa through parts of Central Africa and became dominant in Southern Africa. Large-scale land dispossessions in countries like South Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe, and many others created labour reserves. Two logics informed this colonial scheme. The first was that white settlers themselves came, settled, and inaugurated large-­ scale commercial capitalist farming. This meant that they had to dispossess the indigenous people of land. The second logic was to create a pool of cheap labour for the farms and plantations.57 The dispossessed indigenous people were then concentrated in what became known as native reserves, or Bantustans in South Africa specifically. The native reserves and Bantustans entrapped peasants. They had to survive by subsistence agriculture in crowded areas while also supplying cheap labour to the white-owned farms and plantations. In the southern African region, such colonies as Angola and Mozambique became characterized by both labour reserve economies as well as peasant commodity production.58 The third colonial economic invention, according to Amin, is the “concessionary companies.” One well-known example is that of King Leopold II of Belgium’s Congo Free State rubber plantations. Even in areas dominated by concessionary companies like the Congo, the discovery of minerals in Katanga meant that a mining industry competed for cheap labour with the plantations. In all the colonies, the introduction of an array of colonial taxes pushed more and more indigenous people into the nexus of the colonial capitalist monetary commodity economy.59 This analysis provided a broad insight into how indigenous people were entrapped in colonial economies. The “United Nations decolonization normative order” is the fifth important epoch within which Africa is entrapped. This post-1945 form of entrapment is often celebrated by Africans as a form of decolonization and attainment of political independence. Signified by symbolic accommodation of Africa into lowest echelons of the modern world system through membership to the United Nations Organization (UNO), this entrapment might appear progressive and even liberatory. John M. Hobson noted that what emerged after 1945 was a “subliminal Eurocentric institutionalism” within which scientific racism was de-escalated but never expunged from the modern world system.60 In this subliminal Eurocentric institutionalism, binaries of civilized/barbarian and even whites/blacks are allowed to strategically recede from public discourse and international discourse. All this reshuffling of old imperial cards is meant to deliberately confuse the peripherized people into thinking that after 1945 they entered a new “postcolonial” and even “postracial” age. Grosfoguel

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c­ orrectly noted that the major change that took place was from “direct colonialism” to “global coloniality” rather than from “colonialism” to “postcolonialism.”61 The post-1945 dispensation was not only entangled in politics of fake political decolonization (flag independence and neo-colonialism) but with what is here termed Cold War coloniality, which polarized Africans ideologically and reduced the continent to a theatre of proxy hot wars. This is another important epoch that witnessed an Africa that was entrapped in a global ideological warfare that decimated any of the African authentic political and economic formulations and creations. Cold War coloniality even invented financed counterrevolutionary terrorists in Africa like National Resistance Movement (RENAMO) and many others as part of strategy to keep Africa entrapped ideologically in global coloniality, while disciplining and eliminating militant nationalists and pan-Africanists like Patrice Lumumba, Kwame Nkrumah, Samora Machel, Agistinho Neto, and others.62 Military coups and assassinations were sponsored too. Cold War coloniality was as dirty as all other forms of global coloniality. The “post-Cold War triumphalism of neoliberal order,” which Francis Fukuyama erroneously articulated as “the end of history and the last man,” is another important epoch that revealed the entrapment of Africa and the Global South in another specific world order.63 At the centre of this order was what became known as the Washington Consensus—another important lever of global coloniality that closed what was remaining of African policy space and sovereignty through the introduction of Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) and political conditionalities. The state in Africa which has been actively involved in developmentalism was soon depicted as the source of African economic and political problems. It had to be rolled back so as to open the space for unregulated and faceless market forces. The attack on the United States on September 11 inaugurated another shift in the modern world order and instantiated the “post-9/11 anti-terrorist order” under which the paradigm of war gained a new lease of life and a securitization order emerged. In this new context, Africa that has been since the Truman Speech of 1949 depicted as part of the underdeveloped world and defined as a humanitarian case was immediately redefined as terrain of weak and failed states that were potential abodes of terrorists. The noticeable shift was from a humanitarian case to a security threat, namely the rise of a post-­9/11-­ securitization discourse. Thiong’o characterizes the present epoch as one of debt slavery, which has seen modern capitalism mutate into a religious system, with the market as the mediating deity in the conflicting claims of its adherents. The market is the supreme deity guarded by a band of armed angels, apostles and priests who assign Hell for the unrepentant sinner, Purgatory for those showing signs of repentance and Paradise for the saved.64

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Coloniality of markets is also meant to capture the current triumphalism of capital involving intensified identification of new site of accumulation and investment over and above the popular human demands for better life and material security. Coloniality of markets is today driving the new scramble for African natural resources at a time when there is also an increasing Afro-enthusiastic discourse of an Africa that is “rising,” which celebrates increasing demands for African raw materials as a sign of economic growth instead of deepening coloniality. The celebrated so-called Africa rising phenomenon is taking place at a time when there has been increased number of countries competing for power over Africa’s natural resources, including Brazil, India, China, and Russia on top of countries in Europe and North America. A development based on intensification of resource extraction by diverse partners rather than industrialization is nothing but a manifestation of coloniality of markets. According to Godwin Onuoha, “The notion of a resurgent Africa is literally intertwined with the scramble for Africa. While some see the current interest in Africa as novel, others hold the view that there is nothing new in the process, but that it is the latest version in the exploitation of Africa.”65 Today, the Global South in its entirety is trapped by coloniality of markets with capitalism assuming a fundamentalist character of insisting that there is no other way of organizing human reality besides in accordance with capitalist norms. This led Thiong’o to dramatize the ubiquity of coloniality of markets in this revealing manner: There is only one God, his name is market, and the West is his only guardian. Enter ye and throw your fate at the tender mercies of the market.… The voices of those who might see the writing on the wall are drowned by the calls for the worship of the market, literally, with the common credo of privatization, reducible to a maxim: Privatize or Perish.66

Conclusion Now, it seems those who are engaged in struggles for the liberation of Africa from global coloniality have not yet directly attached capitalist racial coloniality. Initiatives such as the building of regional economic communities and South-South solidarities tend to embrace capitalism as an economic logic and hope to leverage their numbers to gain more benefits from the existing system. What is emerging from these initiatives is more of “de-Westernization” rather than decoloniality. As noted by Mignolo, de-Westernization disputes the European and North American control of the colonial matrices of power but not their very existence.67 What also emerges clearly is that the world system that emerged in the fifteenth century has remained resistant to decolonization, and the world orders this system produced have re-maintained imperviousness to “de-imperialization.” What is needed is for Africa, together with the rest of the Global South, to draw lessons from its long history of contact and

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e­ ntrapment in global coloniality and intensify the unfinished decolonization struggles. As defined by Thiong’o, decolonization has to result in the movement of the centre (as well as moving the centre) towards decoloniality, which emphasizes delinking from colonial matrices of power and entrapment.68 What has to radically change are the logics of capital as well as the “assumptions, presuppositions, [and] praxis of living” introduced by global coloniality.69 This is possible now because capitalism is in a terminal crisis which is manifesting itself at the systemic and epistemic levels.

Notes 1. Ibid., xi. 2. Ibid., 9. 3. Walter D.  Mignolo, “On Pluriversality and Multipolar World Order: Decoloniality after Decolonization; Dewesternization after the Cold War,” in Constructing the Pluriverse: The Geopolitics of Knowledge, edited by Bernd Beiter (Durham; London: Duke University Press, 2018), 97. 4. Ibid., 98. 5. Ibid., 155. 6. Ralph A. Austen, African Economic History (London: James Currey, 1987). 7. Sabelo J.  Ndlovu-Gatsheni, “The Entrapment of the Global South in Global Coloniality,” unpublished paper, keynote address delivered at the International Conference on Global Crises, Global Change, Westminster Undergraduate Conference, Westminster College, United States of America, March 30 to April 1, 2017. 8. Eduard Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent (New York: Monthly Review Press 1997), 2–3. 9. Paget Henry Caliban’s Reason: Introducing Afro-Caribbean Philosophy. (New York; London: Routledge, 2000): 4. 10. Ibid. 11. Oliver Cox, Caste, Class and Race: A Study in Social Dynamics (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1948); Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, (New York: Grove Press 1968); Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition (London: Zed Press. 1983); Peter P. Ekeh, Colonialism and Social Structure (Ibadan: University of Ibadan Press, 1983); and Anibal Quijano, “Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America,” Nepantla: Views from South 1, no. 3 (2000): 533–580. 12. Jack Goody, The Theft of History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996): 14. 13. Sylvia Wynter, “Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom: Towards the Human After Man, Its Overrepresentation—An Argument,” New Centennial Review 3, no. 3 (Fall 2003): 257–337; and Nelson Maldonado-­ Torres, “On the Coloniality of Being: Contributions to the Development of a Concept,” Cultural Studies 21, nos. 2–3 (March/May 2007): 240–270. 14. Mahmood Mamdani, Define and Rule: Native as Political Identity (Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 1996), 15. 15. Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Secure the Base: Making Africa Visible in the Globe (London, New York, Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2016), 31.

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16. Marx quoted in Robert C.  Tucker, ed., The Marx-Engels Reader (New York: W. W. Norton, 1978), 476–477. 17. Aime Cesaire, Discourse on Colonialism, translated Joan Pinkham (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000), 43. 18. Ramon Grosfoguel, “Del ‘Extractivismo Economico’ Al ‘Extractvismo Epistemico’ Y Al ‘Extractivism Ontologico’: Una Forma Desstructiva De Conocer, Ser Y Estar En El Mundo,” Tabula Rasa: Bogota-Colombia 24 (2016): 123–143. 19. Cesaire, Discourse on Colonialism, 43. 20. All quotes Ibid. 21. Ali A.  Mazrui, The Africans: A Triple Heritage (London: BBC Publications, 1986), 12. 22. Ibid. 23. Ibid., 13. 24. Thiong’o, Decolonizing the Mind, 5. 25. Mazrui, The Africans, 12. 26. Ibid. 27. Ibid. 28. All quotations in Ramon Grosfoguel, “The Epistemic Decolonial Turn: Beyond Political-Economy Paradigms,” Cultural Studies 21, nos. 2–3 (March/May 2007): 216. 29. Ibid. 30. Ibid. 31. Sabelo J.  Ndlovu-Gatsheni, “Genealogies of Coloniality and Implications for Africa’s Development,” Africa Development, 40, no. 3 (2015): 22. 32. Malyn Newitt, The Portuguese in West Africa, 1415–1670: A Documentary History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 33. Carrie Gibson, Empire’s Crossroads: A History of the Caribbean From Columbus to the Present Day (London: Macmillan, 2014), 2. 34. Newitt, The Portuguese in West Africa, 1415–1670: 1. 35. Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972; reprint, London: Verso, 2018), 140. 36. Christopher Kinsey, Corporate Soldiers and International Security: The Rise of Private Military Companies (London: Routledge, 2006), 38. 37. Kwame Nimako and Glenn Willemsen, The Dutch Atlantic: Slavery, Abolition and Emancipation (London: Polity Press, 2011), 14. 38. Sampie Terreblanche, Western Empires, Christianity, and the Inequalities Between the West and the Rest, 1500–2010 (Johannesburg: Penguin Books, 2014), 220. 39. Ibid., 8. 40. Ibid., 202. 41. Ibid., 198–99. 42. Grosfoguel and Cervantes-Rodriguez 2002: xii. 43. Terreblanche, Western Empires, 75. 44. Ibid., 214. 45. Ibid., 216. 46. Ibid., 218. 47. Nimako and Willemsen, The Dutch Atlantic, 20. 48. Terreblanche, Western Empires, 104.

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49. Wendy Brown, Walled States, Waning Sovereignty (New York: Zone Books, 2010), 21. 50. Nimako and Willemsen, The Dutch Atlantic, 20. 51. Adekeye Adebajo, The Curse of Berlin: Africa after the Cold War (Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2010). 52. Also see Sabelo J.  Ndlovu-Gatsheni, “The Entrapment of Africa within the Global Colonial Matrices of Power: Eurocentrism, Coloniality, and Deimperialization in the Twenty-First Century,” Journal of Developing Societies 29, no. 4 (December 2013): 331–353; and Ndlovu-Gatsheni, “Genealogies of Coloniality.” 53. Mahmood Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror (New York: Pantheon Books; Dakar: CODESRIA Books, 2013). 54. Samir Amin, Unequal Development: An Essay on the Social Formations of Peripheral Capitalism (Hassocks: Harvester, 1976), 317–333. 55. Bernstein 2005: 68. 56. Amin, Unequal Development. 57. Henry Bernstein, “Rural Land and Land Conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa,” in Reclaiming the Land: The Resurgence of Rural Movements in Africa, Asia and Latin America (London; New York: Zed Books, 2005), 69. 58. Ibid. 59. Ibid., 70. 60. John M.  Hobson, The Eurocentric Conception of World Politics: Western International Theory, 1750–2010 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 185. 61. Grosfoguel, “The Epistemic Decolonial Turn.” 62. Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim. 63. Fukuyama quoted in Ndlovu-Gatsheni, “The Entrapment of Africa,”16. Also see Ndlovu-Gatsheni, “Genealogies of Coloniality,” 34. 64. Thiong’o, Secure the Base: 24. 65. Onuoha “A ‘Rising Africa’ in a Resource-Rich Context: Change, Continuity and Implications for Development,” Current Sociology 64, no. 2 (2016): 282. 66. Thiong’o, Secure the Base: 23. 67. Mignolo, “On Pluriversality and Multipolar World Order,” 105. 68. Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Moving the Centre: The Struggles for Cultural Freedoms (Oxford: James Currey, 1993). 69. Mignolo, “On Pluriversality and Multipolar World Order,” 105.

CHAPTER 4

History of Racial Capitalism in Africa: Violence, Ideology, and Practice Madalitso Zililo Phiri

The expansion and consolidation of capitalism as a world system was built on the extension of property rights and a fundamental shift in European societies from feudalism to building new institutions that led to the different stages of industrial development. Africa was incorporated in the global capitalist architecture through draconian laws and institutions that justified inequalities and violence. In contemporary times, as the discourse of neoliberal globalization has defined Africa’s political economy of development, its dominance is considered as a sine qua non to development. These justifications have been advanced by policy pundits, from the World Bank that advocates societal transformation through venture capitalism and inclusive growth to conservative historians like Niall Ferguson (2017, 2011, 2003a, b), who advocates a discourse on entrepreneurial venture through technological start-ups and mobile digital money. Little emphasis is placed on how violence, racial capitalism, racism, White supremacy, and the institutionalization of power by groups of nations cemented inequalities predicated on the unbridled fetishization of African societies and the body. In an era whereby capitalist expansion has assumed an unquestionable role in influencing the growth and trajectory of Africa’s policy development, it is crucial to revisit the theoretical contributions of pan-Africanists who demystified the narrative of inclusive capitalism. Capitalism needs to be understood as a violent ideology achieved through institutions of domination. Contemporary theoretical contributions on world history like Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson (2012) have emphasized the role of capitalism in shaping political and economic institutions and the Great Transformation of M. Z. Phiri (*) University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa © The Author(s) 2020 S. O. Oloruntoba, T. Falola (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of African Political Economy, Palgrave Handbooks in IPE, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38922-2_4

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world history. In the South African context, however, a Marxist analysis of capitalist expansion gave less prominence to racial capitalism as an analytical category after South Africa had assumed the status of an industrial power that shaped its power and social relations throughout the long durée of capitalist expansion in the twentieth century (Wolpe 1972; Legassick 1974). More recently, Bill Freund (2019) makes an important theoretical contribution arguing that South Africa should be viewed as a developmental state throughout the twentieth century; however, racial capitalism remains marginal to this intervention. Yet, Black South African Marxists like Bernard Magubane (1996, 1976) always viewed race as an analytical category to understand patterns of unequal accumulation that were characteristic of South African and global capitalism. The trajectory of capitalism on the African continent fused imperial and colonial ideas that led to its subjugation. Racial capitalism as a concept predates Cedrick Robinson’s (1983) popularization of the term as several theoretical contributions had been made by Marxists to position race as an analytical category to understand patterns of capitalist accumulation (Hudson 2018). However, according to Robin D. G. Kelley, Cedrick Robinson’s articulation of racial capitalism is a sui generis contribution as it departs from the classic critiques of the evolution of capitalism on a world scale. Kelley suggests the following: Building on the work of another forgotten black radical intellectual, sociologist Oliver Cox, Robinson challenged the Marxist idea that capitalism was a revolutionary negation of feudalism. Instead capitalism emerged within the feudal order and flowered in the cultural soil of a Western civilization already thoroughly infused with racialism. Capitalism and racism, in other words, did not break from the old order but rather evolved from it to produce a modern world system of “racial capitalism” dependent on slavery, violence, imperialism, and genocide. Capitalism was “racial” not because of some conspiracy to divide workers or justify slavery and dispossession, but because racialism had already permeated Western feudal society. (2017: 3)

The chapter looks at the ideas of imperial and colonial violence that cemented institutions of dominance for the expansion of European colonial capitalist modernity by providing theoretical considerations of the meanings of capitalism. It achieves this task by juxtaposing the ideas of Western Marxists such as Wood with radical pan-Africanist Marxists such as Samir Amin (1972, 1974, 2014), Walter Rodney (1972), and Archie Mafeje (1991, 2002, 2003). These variations in a Marxist discourse analyse capitalism as a world system that solidified different economic zones of the continent for its own expansion. Central to the growth of capitalist, modernity was the commodification of the African body and society at large (Robinson 1983, 2019). The Africanist economic historian Frederick Cooper (2002) argues that we should look at the past of the present in a more coherent way. The ideologies of a colonial, capitalist, Christian modernity placed Europeans at the centre of history entrenching practices that decimated the inferior peoples of the world to the exclusion of

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the latter and their removal from the historical canon of humanity (Said 1978, 1993; Dabashi 2015; Terreblanche 2002, 2014; Mudimbe 1988, 1994; Dussel 1996). As Ngugi wa Thiong’o has suggested: When Vasco da Game set foot in the Cape in 1498, it was part of the general period of what has come to be known as the European renaissance, the founding moment of capitalist modernity and Western bourgeois ascendancy in the world. It was also the beginning of the wanton destruction of many city civilizations along the coasts of Africa, East Africa in particular. (2009: 52)

The aim of the chapter is to discursively highlight the divergence between Africanist and pan-Africanist scholarship when engaging with the theoretical antecedents of the origins of underdevelopment and inequality on the African continent. The first part of the chapter engages with contemporary debates on the history of capitalism in an age of a resurgent White supremacy. The second part engages the historical and conceptual approaches of Ellen M.  Wood (2002) who attempts to explain the long durée of capitalist expansion on a world scale. The third part of the chapter deals with historical approaches that evaluate whether forms of proto-capitalism existed in precolonial Africa. This section argues that colonialization disrupted precolonial social formations that defined Africa’s social relations. The fourth section addresses the issues related to the final stages of Africa’s incorporation into the world system. This section draws on the three stages that Samir Amin (1972) adopted to explain the final stages of capitalist incorporation of the African continent. The chapter concludes by arguing that Africa’s development impasse needs to be historicized with an understanding of capitalism as an anti-human system and, therefore, an unnecessary stage for Africa’s development.

The Case for Colonialism and Capitalism in Africa: Myth or Fact? Various perspectives have been advanced to position Africa’s failure or lack of development after its historical incorporation in the global capitalist architecture. Following an intense commitment to societal transformation through the transfer of capital flows administered under coercion in the granting of official development assistance, loans, and concessional grants, and the imposition of governance institutions, Africa is often castigated for its inability to adopt capitalist institutions. The past twenty years have seen a resurgent optimism dubbed the “African Rising” whereby the continent’s entrepreneurial prowess, venture capitalism, financial dexterity, and sound management of governance institutions have been understood as important interventions for achieving the teleological goal of inclusive economic growth, development, and societal transformation. This contemporary lexicon of development discourse has found fertile ground in intellectual, cultural, and policy positions that champion conservative, ahistorical approaches to Africa’s underdevelopment.

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The antecedents of colonial and contemporary capitalism have been historicized to defend the ideas of colonialism and capitalism. The publication of Bruce Gilley’s (2017) mediocre article titled the “Case for Colonialism” in the flagship journal Third World Quarterly revealed a Eurocentric perspective that did not even attempt to engage with radical pan-Africanist scholarship that had settled the debates of colonialism’s benevolence in the first half of the 20th Century. The article deepened the chasm of ahistorical approaches that have defined the current era of neoliberal capitalism. Despite the fact that the editor(s) of the journal insisted that proper procedures had been followed, the article misrepresented facts about capitalist accumulation as it pertains to Africa and hagiographic representations of colonial institutions. Ideas defending Western supremacy, colonialism, and capitalism never left the West. Despite the sweeping demands of global decolonization between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, the Western capitalist ethos has defined the social and political relations of the formerly colonized societies. Contemporary African cultural conversations have been heavily influenced by perspectives of the Western capitalist empires as benign actors whose institutions and ambitions were pivotal for the improvement of human life, even among the “inferior peoples” that Europe came into contact through its mission civilisatrice. The idea of a benign civilization does not account for modernity’s violent history, which as Mahmoud Mamdani (2004) suggests: Eurocentric history constructed two peripheries: one visible, the other invisible. Part of the invisible periphery was Africa. The same political project that produced a self-standing history of the West also produced a self-standing history of Africa. Like the notion of the West, that of Africa was also turned into a racialized project. The difference was that Africa was debased rather than exalted, redefined as the land south of the Sahara, coterminous with that part of the continent ravaged during the slave trade. (31)

Conservative British historian Niall Ferguson suggested that the negation of the historical violence of capitalism was a necessary stage of development in contemporary times. Ferguson’s (2003a, b, 2011, 2017) thorough historical expositions defend the invincible institutions of free markets, the right of the bourgeoisie to rule, civilizational superiority, and the ingenuity of capitalism in producing contemporary modernity. Ferguson further, provides historical defence for the practices of empire and the overwhelming success and superiority of European civilization. He has suggested that it is not by accident that, in 1500, Europe’s future imperial powers controlled 10 per cent of the world’s territories and generated just over 40 per cent of its wealth. By 1913, at the height of empire, the West controlled almost 60 per cent of the territories, which together generated almost 80 per cent of the wealth. This stunning fact is lost, he regrets, on a generation that has supplanted history’s sweep with a feeble-minded relativism that holds “all civilisations as somehow equal” (Ferguson 2011). Yet, as Mamdani has argued, the very notion of an uninter-

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rupted “Western civilization” across linear time is an idea that only arises from the vantage point of the power we know as the West (2004: 33). These historical misrepresentations have been defended in a political era where neoliberal globalisation, White supremacy, neoconservative, and narrow nationalisms are ubiquitous in, shaping the global political agenda. The long durée of the twentieth century produced conservative ideas of market fundamentalism across both sides of the Atlantic in Thatcher and Reagan. These leaders helped to provide the moral and intellectual dominance of neoliberal capitalist globalisation as the only mode of production to lead to societal transformation culminating in contemporary public policies (neoliberalism) and neo-populist ideologies globally. In this era, Africa’s political economy of development was viewed from a singular perspective where neoliberal policy prescriptions from the leading international development institutions of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organization shape the development discourse. Africa’s failure is often castigated in intellectual and policy cul-de-sacs to adapt to the rules of engagement in the global capitalist architecture. The high priests of capitalist ideologies defended these dominant discourses through the pseudo-scholarship of Western-trained academics like Dambisa Moyo (2009, 2012, 2018) and think tanks which are strong proponents of ideas of African capitalism. The problematic ideational propositions in these perspectives are that there is no engagement with the evolution of state formation and debates on state capitalism by key radical African scholars. The intellectual and cultural ideas emphasize agency of African actors to change the political economy of Africa’s development. The mistaken promulgation of these ideas lends credence to the prowess and ingenuity of the market with little emphasis on power and the nature of exploitative relationships inherent in capitalist enterprise. Amin argues that capitalism, class struggle, politics, the state, and the logics of capital accumulation are inseparable. Capitalism is by its nature a regime in which successive states of disequilibrium are products of social and political confrontations situated beyond the market (Amin 2014: 16). In contemporary Africa, capitalism has always been associated with violence and a history of plunder and dispossession of either the peasantry or the worker. Further, it has proven to be a system of permanent crisis that defeats liberal promulgations of African agency to change its political economy of development. As Amin further argues, “the idea that there exists an economic logic (which economic science enables us to discover) that governs the development of capitalism is an illusion. There is no theory of capitalism distinct from its history. Theory and history are indissociable, just as are economics and politics” (ibid. 17). The discourse of Africa Rising has cemented optimism that Africa’s political economy can be turned into opportunity. These arguments merit consideration because they assume that underdevelopment can be overturned, but there are limitations in this line of reasoning. First, these arguments assume that Africa’s incorporation into the global capitalist architecture applies similar

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rules of engagement. As Amin has argued, all regions of the world (including Africa) are equally integrated in the global system but are integrated into it in different ways. The concept of marginalization is false because it hides the real question, which is not “to which degree the various regions are integrated” but “in which way they are integrated” (ibid. 29). Second, Africa’s political economy of development can change once capitalism as a system of world accumulation and domination ceases to be the modus operandi leading to a continental sovereign development project. For African countries, this requires building South-South solidarities in which a financial architecture challenges the asymmetrical economic relations in the liberal capitalist regime. Solidarity should be cognizant of the fact that the monopolization of power, trade relations, technologies, and weapons produced a history of unequal patterns of accumulation on a world scale. As Amin further argues: African peoples and governments have not yet developed counter strategies of their own, similar perhaps to what some Eastern Asian countries have been deploying. In that frame, globalisation does not offer Africa any solution to its nagging development problems. The strategy of Trans-National Corporations does not help Africa moving beyond a pattern of international division of labour belonging to the remote past. The alternative, from an African point of view, needs to combine the building of auto-centred economies, social structures, and societies in order to participate more equally and fully in the global economy. This general law is valid for Africa today as it has been throughout modern history for all the regions of the world. (2014: 36)

This chapter has aimed to revisit the debates of Africa’s incorporation in the global capitalist architecture. While it is assumed that policy prescriptions and productivist capitalism changed the trajectory of East Asian countries, these arguments are simplistic and redundant. Other than the domestic conditions that promulgated state capitalism and repressive labour laws, the US position had been to contain Communism in that region as a way to extend markets of Asian products to further cement the purchase of luxury goods from the United States and the transfer of technology. Understanding the history of capitalism on a world scale and how Africa was incorporated into it provides a rather sophisticated grasp of world development. Counter-hegemonic projects should drive the development discourse on the African continent.

The Expansion of Capitalism on a World Scale Western radical Marxist structuralist scholarship made several attempts to make sense of the origins of capitalism on a world scale and, to a larger extent, the African continent. Ellen Wood contends that “accounts of the origin of capitalism have been fundamentally circular: they have assumed a prior existence of capitalism in order to explain its coming into being” (2002: 5). In doing so, scholars from different backgrounds have presupposed the existence of a uni-

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versal profit-maximizing rationality. Wood advances her arguments by dissecting the critical accounts of development of capitalism between European and anti-European approaches. In the West, neo-Marxists like Immanuel Wallerstein provided useful categories of advancing approaches that understood capitalism as a world system. The concept of primitive accumulation, which has been thoroughly debated, argues that if a new mode of production emerged to birth capitalism then forms of proto-capitalism existed before a full-fledged capitalist economy. The effect of these explanations is to stress the continuity between non-capitalist and capitalist societies and to deny or disguise the specificity of capitalism (Wood 2002: 6). If that is the case, what then it may be fittingly asked, what is “capitalism”? Is it the large-scale production which came with the industrial revolution? Is it the system of “private property”? Some have identified capitalism with the “profit motive” in business; others with the “competitive system”, especially the so-called cut-throat variety. Any understanding of capitalism would require a critical examination of all these interpretations, and other observations that pertain to recent developments. Wood develops her thesis further as she notes that “the question is what this has to do with capitalism, and on that score, the anti-Eurocentric arguments tend to fall into precisely those Eurocentric traps they are meant to avoid. The remarkable thing about anti-Eurocentric critiques is that they start from the same premises as do the standard Eurocentric explanations, the same commercialization model and the same conception of primitive accumulation” (Wood 2002: 30). Wood argues: Anti-European critiques generally take one or both of two forms: first they deny the ‘superiority’ of Europe and emphasize the importance, in fact the dominance, of non-European economies and trading networks throughout most of human history, as well as the technological development achieved by some of the main actors; and/or, second they emphasize the importance of European imperialism in the development of capitalism. Often this has to do with the role of British imperialism, particularly the profits of sugar plantations and the slave trade, in the development of industrial capitalism, though 1492 is also a major milestone in the earlier rise of capitalism. (2002: 30)

Classic European capitalism was forged once societies transitioned from feudalism, which enabled new actors to appropriate value and surplus predicated on the exploitation of labour and competition. This comes close to the Weberian conceptualization of capitalism: the calculated evaluation of anticipated periodic returns in the form of dividends or interest payments and the equation of those returns in terms of a present lump sum of money (Taeusch 1935: 222). However, Wood suggests that “since trade was widespread in other parts of the world, imperialism was really the essential factor distinguishing Europe from the rest, because it gave European powers the critical mass of wealth that finally differentiated them from other commercial powers” (2002: 31). Such an interpretation of capitalism makes possible a social-economic per-

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spective of the interest rate, insurance, commodity, and security exchanges of savings, real estate values, and of investment activities in general. Polanyi (1944) offers the closest explanations tracing the beginnings and development of capitalism as a historic event. While these explanations are largely descriptive, they are not satisfied with a merely economic interpretation. They regard capitalism as an integral part of the complex fabric of modern civilization, including all its humanistic patterns and colourations (Taeusch 1935: 222). The more pragmatic view of Lujo Brentano and others, anticipated by Adam Smith, contrasts with this idealistic and relatively passive view of capitalism, namely that capitalism is the organization of productive or distributive agencies to create not only income but also an increment in the original investment (ibid., 223). This interpretation affords an illuminating basis on which to understand the socio-economic functions of the entrepreneurs, inventor, and discoverer but fails to give a critical account of what led precolonial African societies to become nation-states that were later incorporated in the global capitalist economy. Wood’s critique of Polanyi’s classic argues: The fact remains that the Great Transformation was a significant departure from conventional historiography on the ‘transition’. Yet is strikingly how little that important book has managed to affect the dominant model, even though there now seems to be a revival of interest in Polanyi. (Wood 2002: 26)

She notes that what fails to emerge from Polanyi’s work is an appreciation of the ways in which a radical transformation of social relations preceded industrialization. The specific, imperatives of the capitalist market, the pressures of accumulation, and increasing labour productivity are treated not as the product of specific social relations but as a result of technological improvements that seem inevitable, at least in Western Europe. It would seem absurd that at a time when capitalism has triumphed over all modes of production in its contemporary form and come to define empire that would be the defining order of the day. Capitalist expansion, according to Wood, “is a story in which age-old social practices, with no historical beginning have grown and matured unless their growth and maturation have been thwarted by internal or external obstacles” (Wood 2002: 32). Wood continues: “The critical factor in the divergence of capitalism from all other forms of ‘commercial society’ was the development of social property relations that generated market imperatives and capitalist ‘laws of motion’, which imposed themselves on production” (Wood 2002: 75–76). She adds: “It was…a fundamental change in social property relations—a change that made producers, appropriators, and the relations between them market dependent that would bring about capitalism” (Wood 2002: 80). To the contemporary reader, it would rather seem absurd, even unimaginable, if this is applied to Africa’s incorporation into the global capitalist economy. It is hard to fathom a precolonial Africa that did not sustain capitalist modes of production. The argument is sustained by the fact that capitalism is an end in and of

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itself, and the drive for appropriation and accumulation forms a natural inclination for all individuals, even in primitive societies. This reasoning is faulty, and a brief analysis of precolonial African social formations demystifies the social property argument. Neither does this position seek to promote a romantic gloriana, which imagines precolonial African civilizations as free from conflict and multifaceted contestations.

Proto-capitalism in Precolonial Africa: Some Contestations Precolonial African societies cannot be written as narratives of Western caricature because these narratives do not provide meaningful interpretations of the modes of production that existed in the large empires. The Africanist historian Frederick Cooper notes that “within Africa, some kingdoms or empires incorporated culturally diverse populations, sometimes assimilating them, sometimes allowing considerable cultural autonomy while demanding obedience and collecting tribute. In some regions, kinship groups recognized affinity with relatives living hundreds of miles away” (2002: 13). There was cultural diversity and specificity sometimes crystallized into a sense of being a distinct people. However, distinctiveness did not mean isolation, nor did it extinguish interconnection, relatedness, and mutual influence (Cooper 2002: 13). If a mode of production existed in which trade relations took place, these were distinct features that allowed for capitalist expansion after European powers subdued and subjugated precolonial societies. If that is the case, is it also plausible to suggest that trade and social strata were more egalitarian? It is important, however, to understand what forms of social equality existed. Cooper’s account of precolonial Rwanda notes that “wealthy people owned cattle, and the wealthiest claimed to be Tutsi, but many Hutu became cattle owners and many of them began to think of themselves and be accepted as Tutsi” (2002: 8). This does not mean that it was an egalitarian society; the difference between owning many cattle and owning few more was an important point that Rodney (1972) also extensively discusses. Nor was it a peaceful society. Violent conflict, however, rarely pit Tutsi against Hutu, but it took place between rival kingdoms each of which consisted of both Tutsi and Hutu (Cooper 2002; Rodney 1972; Mamdani 2001). Amin further notes that the stock of gold built up in Europe and in the East throughout the centuries originated from tropical Africa, reminding us of the principal nature of precolonial trade. The important volume of this trade, its egalitarian nature, and the autonomous character of the African societies are unambiguously described in the Arab literature of the period (Amin 1972: 510). Both Amin and Rodney converge by noting that Afro-Asiatic globalization pre-1500 was much more egalitarian; Black Africa was not on the whole more backward than the rest of the world. Complex social formations characterized the continent, sometimes accompanied by the development of the state and almost invariably based on visible social differentiations that revealed the

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ancient nature of the process of disintegration of the primitive village. Even Wood collaborates the non-existence of proto-capitalism. She argues: In all earlier societies ‘economic’ relations and practices were ‘embedded’ or submerged in non-economic-kinship, communal, religious, and political—relationships. …[T]hroughout history, been a great many towns and a great deal of trade that never gave rise to capitalism. For that matter, there have been elaborate urban settlements—such as the temple cities of ancient empires—that have not been commercial centres. More particularly, there have been societies with advanced urban cultures, highly developed trading systems, and far-flung commercial networks that have made ample use of market opportunities but have not systematically experienced what we have been calling market imperatives. (Wood 2002: 32)

The Western neo-Marxist analysis is surmounted by inadequacies in explaining the emergency of capitalism in the world, let alone in Africa. If it is true that capitalism emerged out of specific historical conditions, then any negation of historical transformations and processes cannot explain its emergence in Africa. It would, therefore, make sense that tracing the origins of capitalism in Africa can only make sense as a historical process that cannot be undertaken by excluding the European power dynamics that have profoundly shaped the continent. Amin and Mafeje articulate the existence of market opportunities without calling on the compulsion of market imperatives articulated by those who provide sui generis analysis on the absence of the market imperatives in precolonial societies. Amin contends that it is necessary to emphasise that social formations are concrete structures, organized and characterized by a dominant mode of production which forms the apex of a complex set of subordinate modes. Thus, it is possible to have a small-scale trading mode linked to a dominant tributary (‘early’ or ‘developed’ feudal), and even based on slave or a capitalist mode of production. (Amin 1972: 506)

In summary, Amin poignantly argues: Modes of production, then, do not actually constitute historical categories, in the sense of occurring in a necessary sequence of time. On the other hand, social formations have a definite age, reckoned on the basis of the level of development of the productive forces. This is why it is absurd to draw an analogy between the same mode of production belonging to societies of different ages—for example, between African or Roman slavery and that of the nineteenth century United States. (Amin 1972: 507)

While the appropriation of wealth and cattle in precolonial times negated egalitarianism, social mobility was possible because inequalities were not cemented during the epoch of colonial capitalist expansion. The inception of mercantile and colonial capital altered social formations and the precolonial

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modes of production to reflect the interest of imperial powers. Mafeje clearly explains this when looking at social strata in Africa and notes that: Apart from Eurocentrism, one suspects that the confusion stems from the use of the term, “private”. In the African context it is used in opposition to “collective” or “communal” property that is believed to be a peculiar attribute of African production systems. This is a gross misconception. “Social” is not compatible with exclusive rights in relation to its object of appropriation. Corporate groups such as lineages and production units such as households in Africa have exclusive rights to what has been allocated to them and what they have accumulated over time. But no individual has the right to exclude others from what is common endowment within given kinship groups. This does not mean that there is no inequality in this social milieu. There are differences in endowment and rates of accumulation among various kinship groups and households. These are indicative of the potential for social differentiation or actual class-formation in African societies. However, this apart from the fact that so far there is no empirical evidence to prove that African systems of social organization necessarily constitute a barrier to accumulation and economic expansion. This is unmistakably a Eurocentric presupposition. In the past African producers have shown themselves to be very responsive to the opportunities offered by the capitalist market but reserve the right to use their own modes of social organization. (Mafeje 2002: 13–14)

The conditions under which Africans produced and exchanged their means of sustenance have varied between and within countries from generation to generation (Magubane 1976: 173). Further, Africanist scholarship has misunderstood concepts of ownership and the insistence of the communal mode of production as one of the oldest systems of social relations in Africa. The absence of private property in land, which has enamoured many African socialists, did not mean that Africa prior to the incorporation into the world capitalist system was an El Dorado of egalitarianism (see Magubane 1976; Mafeje 1991, 2002, 2003). Mafeje substantiates this position as he notes that insofar as allocation and exploitation of arable land were determined by membership in the particular groups enumerated above, it is a serious conceptual transgression to think of African systems of land tenure as communal (2003: 2). In many societies, class division emerged and expressed itself in the inequality of property relations that arose among peasants. As Rodney has argued: The most common clashes between different social formations were those between pastoralists and cultivators. In some instances, the pastoralists had the upper hand, as in West Africa where cultivators like the Mandinga and Hausa were the overlords of the Fulani cattlemen right up to the 18th and 19th centuries. The reverse situation was found in the Horn of Africa and most of East Africa. …The result in each case was that a relatively small faction held control of the land and (where relevant) cattle, mines and long-distance trade. It also meant that the minority group could make demands on the labour of their subjects— not on the basis of kinship but because a relationship of domination and subordination existed. (Rodney 1972: 54)

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While class antagonisms and conflict reflected multifaceted political contestations, it was the incorporation of Africa into the evolving world capitalist mode of production that cemented contemporary inequalities predicated on a history of anti-Black racism. Long before Africa was divided among European powers at the Berlin Conference in 1884, African slavery constituted the most important form of trade between Europe and Africa, but this has always been underestimated as a source of finance capital growth (see Rodney 1972; Robinson 1983; Magubane 1976, 1996; Williams 1944). It was also the ideologies and practices of social Darwinism and eugenics propagated through imperial powers like Britain, who had an initial experience of colonizing the Irish, that exported violent ideologies of the “inferior peoples” on a global scale (Magubane 1996; Nyoka 2016). The centrality of the black body in the development of mercantile and colonial capital was clearly articulated by the pan-Africanist and sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois, who noted: It was the Negro slave who made the sugar colonies most precious colonies ever recorded in the annals of imperialism. Experts called them “the fundamental prop and support” of the Empire. The British Empire in the 18th century was a magnificent superstructure of American commerce and naval power on an African foundation. (Du Bois 1965: 58)

The methodological lens to be used is the violence implicit in capitalism that cements anti-Black racism, as articulated by Rodney: Since capitalism, like any other mode of production, is a total system which involves an ideological aspect, it is also necessary to focus on the effects of the ties with Africa on the development of ideas within the superstructure of European capitalist society. …It would be too sweeping a statement to say that all racial and colour prejudice in Europe derived from the enslavement of African and the exploitation of non-white peoples in the early centuries of international trade. …It can be affirmed without reservations that the white racism which came to pervade the world was an integral part of the capitalist mode of production. Nor was it merely a question of how individual white person treated a black person. The racism in Europe was a set of generalisations and assumptions; which had no scientific basis but were rationalized in every sphere from theology to biology. It is mistakenly held that Europeans enslaved Africans for racist reasons. …Oppression follows logically from exploitation, so as to guarantee the latter. Oppression of African people on purely racial grounds accompanied, strengthened and became indistinguishable from oppression for economic reasons. (1972, 99–100)

Slavery and racial capitalism birthed the hierarchical inequalities that are in the contemporary colonial modernity. The connection between slavery and capitalism was further made in Williams’ (1944) thorough exposition of the trade’s importance to the British Empire. Britain’s industrial take-off was financed through the overt and clandestine operations of shipping companies, insurance houses, and banking concerns. For example, David and Alexander

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Barclay engaged in slave trade in 1756. They later used their profits to set up Barclays Bank (Williams 1944; Rodney 1972). There was a similar progression in the case of Lloyds, which began as a small London coffee house to become one of the world’s largest banking and insurance houses after dipping into profits from slave trade and slavery (Williams 1944). The travesty to understanding the contemporary epoch is that the hegemonic dominance of capitalism has been accepted as a sine qua non to Africa’s development without historicizing anti-Black racism.

The Final Stages of Incorporation: Mercantile Capitalist Expansion and Imperialism and Colonialism The colonial capitalist economy is a useful referential as a methodological category to comprehend the dialectical antecedents of underdevelopment (Ake 1976; Rodney 1972; Amin 1972, 1974). The colonial economy was an extension of Western capitalism and had an effect on its development, but it differed quite substantially from the capitalist economies of the West (Ake 1976). In his study of the expansion of the colonial capitalism, Amin noted that colonial exploitation had taken different forms which were divided in three macro regions. There was an Africa of the colonial trade economy, an Africa of the concession-owning companies, and an Africa of the labour reserves (Amin 1972). In the colonial period, growth was almost exclusively driven by external demand (Amin 1972, 1974; Rodney 1972). Amin further argues that the partitioning of the continent, which was completed by the end of the nineteenth century, multiplied the means available to the colonialists to attain capital at the centre. The interests of the colonists across the world were the same: “to obtain cheap exports” (Amin 1972: 518). However, he continues, “although the target was the same everywhere, different variants of the system of colonial exploitation were developed. These did not depend, or only slightly, on the nationality of the coloniser” (Amin 1972: 518–519). The expansion of mercantile capitalism as a system that organizes society provides insights to the transformations that have had profound ramifications throughout the colonized world, Africa included. There are no definitive logical answers, let alone coherent explanations to suggest which process precedes the other. Was it capitalism that led to imperialism, or was imperialism vis-à-vis capitalist development that incorporated Africa into the mercantile and colonial period? With the benefit of historical hindsight, much had been documented shedding light on these developments. Amin argues that in the region called ‘Africa of the labour reserves’, capital at the centre needed to have a large proletariat immediately available. This was because there was great mineral wealth to be exploited (gold and diamonds in South Africa, and copper in Northern Rhodesia), and an untypical settler agriculture in the tropical Africa of Southern Rhodesia, Kenya, and German Tanganyika. (1972: 518)

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In South Africa, racial capitalism was more pronounced with the opportune arrival of Cecil John Rhodes, who extended capitalist expansion and the mission civilisatrice. Moon, for example, notes that Rhode’s “imperialism was undoubtedly sincere, and extraordinarily philosophical” (1926: 165). The colonial state as an avenue of violence and accumulation becomes the sole purpose of its existence. Colonial violence dispossesses the African person’s materiality through ideologies of dominance. As Moon further suggests on Rhodes: One biographer tells of the mental struggles through which Rhodes passed as a young man, in his search for an explanation of the universe and a view of life. There must be a God, Rhodes noted, there must be a divine purpose in history. The purpose it appeared, was the evolution of humanity toward a finer type. The conclusion easily follows, that to serve the divine purpose, one should strive to promote the predominance of the Anglo-Saxons race’. Since the surface of the earth is limited, a vigorous effort should be made to obtain as much land as possible, while land is to be had, for the future expansion of this race. (Moon 1926: 166)

The portrayal of Rhodes as a noble statesman was ubiquitous at the beginning of the twentieth century and reverberates in contemporary culture. The divisive ideologies he promoted in the recent past have been questioned by student movements at the University of Cape Town and Oxford. Yet Rhodes’ ubiquitous influence was cemented through ideas that championed Anglo-­ Saxon supremacy in the creation of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, which later became Chatham House. As Moon had noted, these ideas are cemented through his altruistic philosophy of imperialism, which also saw him emerge as a shrewd businessman (Moon 1926: 166). Undoubtedly, mercantile capital carried in it the fundamental contradictions of malevolent and benign intents. To suggest that there was altruism in mercantile capital contradicts the very fundamental premise of racial capitalism, which resulted in the separation of Africans from the canon of humanity. Colonial and mercantile capital contained within them the fundamental contradictions that gave rise to endemic inequalities in contemporary Africa and the class formations that exacerbated previously inherited precolonial multifaceted social formations. The social fabric of precolonial African formations was incorporated into the dehumanizing project that Europe had embarked on since the inception of an unequal globalization in the late 1400s. Imperialism was cemented when Europeans negated the cultural and historical existence of the native peoples, creating arbitrary units without any regard to existing identifications and loyalties; established exploitative and brutal rule; and instituted an economic system that was foreign to Africa’s social formations. Imperialism and racial capitalism inflicted violence that has continued to reproduce itself in contemporary African political economy. Severe wounds continue to haunt the continent today. Lenin articulated this position as he noted that

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[t]he typical ruler of the world became finance capital, a power that is peculiarly mobile and flexible, peculiarly intertwined at home and internationally, peculiarly devoid of individuality and divorced from the immediate processes of production, peculiarly easy to concentrate. (1964: 10)

Moreover, Lenin asserts that the nature of capitalism and the mobilization of finance within this system cannot be benign: Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which dominance of monopolies and finance capital has established itself; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance, in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed. (1964: 10)

Imperialism, therefore, represents a special stage in the development of capitalism. This view affirms the destructive forces that capitalism had on the continent, let alone the volatile inconsistencies and rationale of the system itself. Amin (1972) acknowledges the fact that in order to obtain the proletariat quickly on the “Africa of the labour reserves”, the colonizers dispossessed African rural communities through violence and deliberately drove communities into small, poor regions with no means of modernizing and intensifying their farming. The colonizers forced the “traditional” societies to supply temporary or permanent migrants on a vast scale, thus providing a cheap proletariat first for the European mines and farms and later for the manufacturing industries of South Africa, Rhodesia, and Kenya. The proposition whether capitalism as a world system can result in fundamental transformation of contemporary African society is faulty. The engine of capitalist growth has always been anti-Black racism, even in subsequent contemporary public policy approaches that suggest “inclusive capitalism”. Social polarization is mutually exclusive with worldwide expansion of mercantile and colonial capitalism. Through imperialism and racial capitalism’s aggression, precolonial African society was distorted to the point of being unrecognizable. It lost its autonomy, and its main function became production for the world market under conditions that, because the colonizers impoverished it, deprived the members of any prospects of radical modernization (Amin 1972: 520). The reconfiguration of power and social relations remains one of the most convincing arguments that racial capitalism and imperial institutions permanently cemented. The liberal preoccupation with agency, therefore, becomes redundant because no civilizational dialogue takes place to challenge epistemic, political hegemonies or the configuration of economic power itself. The process to undo these practices resists the violent ideology embedded in capitalist world system architecture at multiple levels. The natural inclinations of Europeans after their ascendancy on the global stage was to see themselves as culturally

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superior to the rest of the known world, thereby entrenching institutions predicated on anti-Black racism, dominance, and exploitation that pervaded on a global scale in the contemporary world. Colonialism then was, therefore, not merely a system of exploitation but one whose essential purpose was to repatriate the profits to the so-called mother country (Magubane 1976: 184). From the African viewpoint, that amounted to consistent expropriation of surplus produced by African labour from African resources. It meant the development of Europe as part of the same dialectical process that underdeveloped Africa (Rodney 1972: 172). European expansionism saw itself as the custodian of universal values, which Europe used as a legitimate lethal instrument to dominate the rest of the colonized world of which Africa is a part. Further, far from favouring the development of an Africa bourgeoisie, colonialism choked off its potential whenever its development represented a political threat. The colonial powers were able to shape a system that made possible large-scale production of exports, yet, through mercantile capitalism, was interwoven with a powerful political message to incorporate Africa’s political economy as a periphery in the globe. The incorporation of Africans into the world system was achieved once precolonial African social formations were decimated (Mafeje 1991). The African body itself became commodified and, therefore, central to the development of capitalism as a world system (Robinson 1983; Williams 1944).

Conclusion The evolution of capitalism as a world system that has defined the contemporary power and social relations in Africa needs to be historicized. This chapter engaged with the theoretical categories of Western neo-Marxist, Africanist, and pan-Africanist scholarship. There are fundamental differences that are found across these intellectual traditions. The chapter argued that capitalism on the African continent was not just an accident of history. Rather, it was a well-­ articulated world system and ideology that decimated Africa’s precolonial social formations thereby cementing anti-Black racism, which has shaped contemporary political economy predicaments across the African continent. Capitalism arose out of specific historic conditions as European societies evolved from feudalism to the capitalist epoch. Africa was integrated into the world system when the rules of engagement had been set by imperial and colonial ideologies in which capitalism remained central to maintaining that practice. The body and societies of the inferiorized Africans became the cornerstone engines of growth, resulting in a legacy that is pronounced in the contemporary political economy of development architecture. This analysis of the distinctive features of Africa’s integration into the world economy is fundamental for the study of its racial and class evolution even after independence. If the capitalist mode of production was to develop, it was essential for imperialism, mercantile, and colonial capital to do more than deprive the African subsistence producer of the means of production. Those who had lost their livelihood had to be f­ orcibly

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enrolled in the production processes as slaves, indentured labourers, and forced labour. Africa is a historical process, and its social formations were incorporated into the global periphery in a Eurocentric framework that is predicated on unequal power relations and anti-Black racism.

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Williams, Eric. 1944. Capitalism and Slavery. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. Wolpe, Harold. 1972. Capitalism and Cheap Labour in South Africa: From Segregation to Apartheid. Economy and Society 1 (4): 425–456. Wood, Ellen M. 2002. The Origins of Capitalism: A Longer View. New York: Monthly Review Press.

CHAPTER 5

African Political Economy and Its Transformation into Capitalism Abdullahi Sule-Kano

Introduction Political economy is about the production of material wealth, which is the basis of life in human society. It is about every necessary thing found in nature that humans act upon to make their survival possible. Its most important aspect is the labor process, which is about the exertion of purposeful human energy to create wealth critical to human survival. One of the earliest ruminations on African political economy is found in the Muqaddima, first published in 1370. Some aspects of it dealt with premodern social formations in gainful occupations, ways of earning a living, science of crafts, and so on (Khaldun 2015). Concrete evidence of human culture in the context of social relations to production is available in abundance on the African continent, from the Nubian pyramids of Khemit to the relics of Monomotapa and Zimbabwe, and from the Ethiopian mountains through Timbuktu to Morocco. The consideration of the relations of production and the economic laws of the African social formations reflects what had existed in the history of the African social formations. The subject matter of political economy, which is about the relations of production and the laws of their development, is closely tied to the specific methodology of political economy as applied in the study. Political economy in this context is an aggregate of the means and methods for cognition of relations of production and its reproduction in a system of economic categories and economic laws.

A. Sule-Kano (*) Department of Political Science, Bayero University, Kano, Kano State, Nigeria e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 S. O. Oloruntoba, T. Falola (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of African Political Economy, Palgrave Handbooks in IPE, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38922-2_5

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Africa and Its Premodern Mode of Production In Africa, just as elsewhere in the world, the development of human societies followed the historical process in which one social formation replaces another based on the societies’ capacity for sustained material reproduction, the development of productive forces, and the relations of production. Productive forces, which are the means of production plus people (labor) with their skills and experience, are the most mobile element of production. The other important elements include the objects of labor, which are things found in nature, and the means of labor, which are things that humans use to act on nature or the instruments of production. A certain level of development of productive forces demands corresponding relations of production, which constitute the economic laws that correspond to the relations of production. This reveals the economic basis of a profound social transformation and drives the transition from one socioeconomic system to another, from a lower level of societal development to a higher, more modern one. The history of mankind revealed the sequence of this development in the context of consistent progress from primitive-communal mode to slave mode, then feudal mode, then capitalist mode, and so on. Primitive-communal mode was the first and most extended mode of production in human history (Engels 1975). The African continent has experienced one of the most extensive hangovers of the primitive-communal mode. There were two components of the process of development of primitive-­ communal societies. The first stage was a gathering economy in which people gathered products from nature for survival. The second was a producing economy in which people were engaged in breeding livestock, growing crops, and mastering the methods for increasing production with the help of manufactured implements of labor. The latter was the stage of emergence of a class-­ stratified society. Africa was still witnessing pockets of hunting and gathering societies in the first quarter of the third millennium, from the Bushmen of the Congo Basin to the Koma people of the Mambila highlands in Northern Nigeria. The African herdsmen made a very strong contribution to the economy of the continent. Among the most prominent groups include the Bedouins, the Fulani/Fulbe, and the Masai of Kenya. Furthermore, Africa has an overwhelming population of peasant agricultural families engaged in producing various types of crops, which were yet to be annihilated by capitalism. The means of labor of the African herdsmen were simple. The stick constituted the major instrument of the herdsmen. Their productive forces were extremely weak; they heavily depended on nature to graze animals. The social relations of production of the Fulbe herdsmen were based on simple communal bonds. The Fulbe actively occupied parts of the present-day West African region that stretches from Senegal through modern Mali, Burkina, Niger, and down to Northern Nigeria, covering Sokoto, Kano, and Adamawa area, then into the Cameroons. The African herdsmen have accumulated some experience with and knowledge of the environment in relation to their animal husbandry. For a typical Fulbe herdsman’s family of six to survive entirely on their African

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cattle, he requires at least 593 cows of relevant age/sex mix, with at least 40 percent lactation (Dual and Hjort 1976). The development of shelter in the primitive-communal social formations in Africa began from a gradual evolution in the development of collapsible architecture that used sticks, shrubs, and wood. Much later, these groups produced clothing, domestic items, and pottery. As the economy of the primitive-­ communal social formations improved, they became more complex. Their labor activities also became more varied and their means of labor became more intricate. Simple cooperation became central to labor activity. Many people cooperated to fulfill the same job, which made it possible to unite individual forces, raise the productivity of labor, and create more of the products that were necessary for human life. As the primitive-communal mode disintegrated, its hangover into the subsequent modes of production was manifested for a very long time. In Africa, almost more than in any continent in the world, some vestiges of clan and tribal relations still survive and persist right through the subsequent modes of production. Some elements of peasant culture, extended family relations, communal neighbor relations, remnants of clan and tribal ties, influence and power of tribal leaders, a typical tribesman thinking, and ethnocratic tendencies survived right through the slave mode of production into the feudal mode. They were still very strongly felt by the development of capitalism. The slave mode of production was the crudest and most inhumane form of oppression in human history. It was the first-ever class socioeconomic formation, with two antagonistic classes: slave owners and slaves. Slaves were exploited in the most uncivilized and perverted form. Slaves constituted the productive force. They did not own any means of production. Slaves were considered as live implements of labor, and they were in themselves actual property. As the slave-owning mode of production attained its peak, the state emerged as a power organ of the slave owners. Under the slave mode, material production advanced forward, and the development of society also improved. The means of labor were also improved, and new ones were created. Slave owners appropriated everything that had been massively produced by slaves. In terms of essence, the economic law of the slave mode of production served the objective needs of the slave owners: to capture the production of surplus products for the consumption of the parasitic class. However, due to the inherent contradictions of the slave mode of production, the system was short-lived. The antagonistic class contradictions that existed between slave owners and slaves generated the downfall of the slave mode of production. Inevitably, the feudal mode took over. The feudal system of production was the second mode of production in human history based on the exploitation of human beings. In Africa, feudalism was practiced across the continent, including the Ethiopian Highlands, the Khemit in the Nile valley, the ruins of old Zimbabwe, and the Hausa states of Kano, Katsina, Daura, and Zaria in present-­ day Northern Nigeria. Other old feudal kingdoms include the Benin kingdom in the Nigerian area, old Ghana, old Songhai, and old Mali, which were all located in present-day West Africa.

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The relations of production of the feudal system were driven by the near-­ total control of land by the feudal lords with partial ownership by the peasantry. Under feudalism, the development of productive forces advanced further. The objects and means of labor improved remarkably. The emergence of blast furnaces made smelting of metals improve considerably, which had a significant impact on agricultural development. Serfdom, a process under which peasants were completely dependent on feudal lords, who were also the landlords, became the dominant feature of the relations of production. The peasantry was compelled to work on the land of the feudal lord, and the lords enjoyed the freedom to utilize peasants’ family labor in the production process for the lords’ family needs. In Africa, not all social formations were transformed at the same time and along the same sequence. The remnants of some African social formations, most especially among the proto-Bantu language family group, survived with some heavy hangover of practices associated with the communal mode of production, which made integration into the capitalist mode of production very challenging. The African peasantry constitutes a typical example of some the hangovers of pre-capitalist modes of production. Part of the fundamental basis for the survival and resilience of African peasantry long after the capture of its logic of production by the prevailing capitalist mode of production lay in the matrix of social relations of production, the context of labor, the object of labor, and the means of labor as they relate to the natural environment. For example, the survival of the Fulbe pastoral communal forms of relations to production persists well into the first quarter of the twenty-first century, irrespective of the massive invasion of the capitalist relation of production into African economy. The political economy of a Fulbe family unit reveals that the regeneration of the household reproductive economy begins with the birth of a child. The process of material accumulation for the child’s future productive activity begins at the child’s naming ceremony. All members of the extended family of the newborn donate animals in the name of the newborn to the family. The child’s family will hold in trust the cattle, sheep, goats, and other animals until the child can take care of rearing animals and subsequently establish a family of his or her own, at which time, full ownership takes place. As the child grows up, he or she would be socialized with the animals and the grazing environment. He or she would be taught to know about all the livestock of the household, including identifying his or her own animals by their names; understanding the terrain, including the species of plants, weeds, and grasses; and, in most cases, learning the medicinal and nutritional benefits of the plants available in the environment. By the time such a person would grow up to have a family of his or her own, a productive economic unit based on the newly formed family would have been established. There rests the political economy of a typical Fulbe family unit. The hangover of some primitive-communal relations of production among the peasantry on the African continent was very massive—irrespective of the historical experiences of the slave and feudal modes of production that emerged

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from the primitive-communal mode of production over the millennia. The African agrarian peasantry relied primarily on the top soil to produce their necessities of life and constituted a massive force of resilience even against the bourgeoning capitalist mode of production in its latest stage of development in Africa. The Kano area had a history of over 1000 years as an agricultural production hub and a commercial nerve center in the Bilal-Al Sudan in the present-­ day West African region and in the Sokoto close-settled zone, which was part of the Sokoto Caliphate: a post-feudal mode of state formation that ended about 214 years ago and was still experiencing some traditions of communal mode of relations of production up to the last quarter of the twentieth century. A typical agrarian peasant household in the Sokoto area was characterized by a family production unit of at least eight people with its family land (gandu-­ gida) of about five to nine acres under the authority of the mai-gida (the head of the family). The entire family worked on the gandu-gida as a collective (Sule-Kano 2002). The family used simple tools, such as the hoe, plough, cutlass, ax, etc. A substantial part of agricultural production took place at the family level on the family land. Furthermore, the family land served as a training ground for the socialization of the offspring of the peasantry. As children grew into adults in the peasant households, they contributed to the family labor process on the communal land. Some small portions of the family land, called gayauna, were carved out for the young stars to practice farming. A grown-up child of the peasant family was expected to work on his or her own piece of land as training ground and contribute to the household’s food production. Other socioeconomic activities of the peasant household within the village community setting include the practice of gayya, which was a cooperative organization in the peasant community where family members come together as a collective to work on the family land of a member of the community, whenever such a need arises (Shanton 1985). The peasants’ agricultural system was what fed the European capitalist industries during the colonial period and for several decades in the postcolonial era in some modern African states. Commodity board administrators produced memorable symbols like the great groundnut pyramids of Kano, the cocoa house in Ibadan, and the massive collections of palm products in the Nigerian area. The resilience of the African peasants’ production forces was still manifested well into the first quarter of the twenty-first century, irrespective of the general production crisis instigated by the harsh capitalist transformation that was taking in the African political economy.

Africa’s Post-feudal Mode of Production The feudal mode of production in Africa was confronted with several peasant revolts over the millennia, but very few revolts resulted in a revolution. One such example is a significant upheaval that transformed the feudal mode of production which occurred at the beginning of the nineteenth century and led to the establishment of the Sokoto Caliphate. The 1804 revolution led to the

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collapse of feudal Gobir, Zamfara, Katsina, Kano, Zaria, and several new frontiers in the northern parts of present-day Nigeria and beyond in West Africa, ushering in a new mode of production under a caliphal political system. Sokoto served as the headquarters of the Caliphate. It flourished, in part, because, based on the principles of the old communal mode, the ruling class participated fully in the production process. It never drew resources from the state treasury for personal upkeep. Citizens were assured of the necessities of life. In the city of Sokoto, town criers constantly reminded vulnerable citizens of the window of support from the treasury. The treasury, led by Amir Bello, was popularly known as “the garden-egg of Bello.” Education was accessible to the populace and was linked to the socioeconomic development of the social formation based on communal relations at all levels of the state. The education policy was backed by a decree, in which Bello was quoted to have directed that: “we will attach to him (the Village Head) a tutor who will instruct their children, and a learned man who will lead them in their prayers and teach their students” (Abdullahi 1994). Under Bello’s education policy, scholars were sent to every corner of the Caliphate. They became experts in various fields of knowledge, including religious studies, philosophy, arithmetic, and history. They also taught various languages, including Arabic, Hausa, Fulfulde, and Zarma. The scholars were popularly known as the ulama. The students and the school system were adequately taken care of on the basis communal wealth generated by a community-based political economy. The policy made it the responsibility of the local authorities and the communities to provide necessities to schools, scholars, and students. The state recognized the mobile nature of scholars and students. Thus, it became a rule that wherever scholars and students move within the country, their first point of call is the residence of the leader of the locality, the town, the district, the city, or the emirate to inform the authority of their presence. The authority in charge would make a public announcement to the community under its jurisdiction and arrange for the scholars’ and students’ accommodations. The head of the locality was also responsible for the scholars’ immediate family members who traveled with them. The head of the locality was responsible for accommodating and feeding them for at least three months, until the community was able to provide homes to the scholars. The students’ welfare was the responsibility of the entire locality. Every household in the locality had to provide to the school a dish out of every meal cooked for the family for the students’ meals (Sule-Kano 2010). For the newly arrived scholars, it was their responsibility to admit students of the locality who were interested in furthering their education. Most often, the newly arrived scholars would also join in providing other forms of community service, such as spiritual services and any other skilled activity that could be beneficial to the community. Furthermore, the community would absorb all the newly arrived students into their workshops, workplaces, and other economic activities to train them in a profession. In this way, trade centers were built, productive economic activities were boosted, and the development of

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production of societal wealth was advanced. This was how the economy of Sokoto city, the then-new capital of the Caliphate, was developed. Various industrial sectors were developed in the city, including wangarawa, the gold-­ processing quarters; majema, the tannery, which was the original home of the “Moroccan leather,” produced from red goats, that was exported to Europe; and marina, the dye-pit area where different colors were given to locally produced fabrics. These are just a few of the nerve centers of the political economy under Amir Bello. Sokoto’s post-feudal mode of production lasted just about a century before it was plundered by British colonialism in 1904.

Capitalist Transformation of the African Political Economy The ecosystem of the African political economy for centuries revolved around simple communal production relations. The African communal production relations were among the most resilient ecosystems that survived the slave and feudal modes of production. At its peak, just before the vicious attacks that led to colonialism, Lord Macauley’s account on his visit to Africa gives a vivid picture of the social formation: I have travelled across the length and breadth of Africa and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief such wealth I have seen in this country, such a high moral values, people of such caliber, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage and therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Africans think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self-­ esteem, their native culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation. (Macaulay 1835)

Basically, the instrumentality of colonialism relied on capitalism, which affected some African social formations. The principles of capitalist exchange under colonial domination were reflected in a regime of compulsive colonial taxation, colonial policies related to cash crop production, and the expropriation of surplus labor (Marx 2010). Furthermore, the process instigated the emergence of classes on the African continent (Daryll and Richard 1945). Throughout the period of colonialization, colonial authorities instigated and intensified the transformation of African pre-capitalist economies through the structural adjustment of peasants’ economic activities by making peasants conform to the logic of the capitalist mode of production. With the African continent seized under the full grip of the colonial capitalist process, the transformation to a capitalist economic base was instigated across the continent. The native African political economy was gradually captured, and the continent became a “truly dominated nation” (Macaulay 1835). As the continent was Balkanized, so did each fragmented piece of African

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t­ erritory pursue a capitalist path to growth and then struggle for political independence. Through political independence, Africa had transformed into a very huge productive base for capitalist industrial raw materials and a vast market for capitalist industrial commodities. Consequently, the foundation was set for the pursuit of different types of capitalist systems in the different entities that emerged as independent countries embarked on their path to national capitalist development. At the time of independence, the integration of African countries into the global capitalist framework was foregone conclusion. In fact, immediately after colonial conquest, colonial authorities set in motion the process of changing the logic of relations of production of the pre-capitalist African economies, largely based on agriculture, into that of a capitalist development process. This process led to the gradual incorporation of African peasant economies into the global capitalist system and into the resultant international division of labor, which had prevailed in the postcolonial period. It also became a component of the grand design of global capitalist imperialism. It is for this reason that a proper understanding of the contemporary production crisis of the African people must be grounded in the history of colonial capitalism. African societies were not only conquered and dominated but also had their productive economic activities redirected to serve the dominant interests of their respective imperial economies and to later serve international capitalism under the aegis of multilateral imperialism (Racz 1980). Historically, most African peasant societies engaged in communal agricultural production. The pre-capitalist mode of production of the African peasantry relied on social relations of production rooted in the communality of the peasant household production and cooperative ties at the village level. This mode was sustained through traditional technology and the productive capacity of the peasant producers, which had maintained a relative harmony within the overall gamut of peasant economic activities. Although some researchers have documented the existence of substantial trading activities within the African region before the beginning of the colonial era, there was no commodification of the peasant agricultural produce, and the degree of commercialization in the peasant agriculture was still rather insignificant prior to colonization (Shanton 1985). The pre-capitalist commercial activities of the African peasantry would not have generated the effects that were manifested over half a century after independence. At independence, the state apparatus in most African countries was set to drive their economies toward a capitalist mode of production: a “path determination” (Gareth 2010). The requisite class-formation process was first tracked. The logic of the pre-capitalist production process in the major sectors of the economy was transformed from serving the interests of peasant communal production relations to serving the interests of capitalist-style production, exchange, and consumption relations. The benefits, in terms of surpluses, were appropriated by both local and international capitalist interests. International capital took the lion’s share. Most African countries, irrespective of the history

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of the type of colonial authorities that were in charge, pursued development policies along a capitalist path. All tentacles of international capital that operated in the newly independent countries had a field day in Africa. They appropriated surpluses from the peasant production of cash crops and from the mining industries across the continent. Pre-capitalist agricultural production was the backbone of most African societies under the newly independent countries of Africa, and it became largely rooted in the capitalist transformation process set in motion during the process of colonial rule. This was the process that led to the gradual incorporation of the peasant economies into the global capitalist system and the resultant international division of labor, which prevails among the emerging economies in Africa as part of the “path determination” as a grand design of global capitalist system.

Africa’s Political Economy in the Twenty-First Century Africa’s political economy in the twenty-first century is characterized by five types of modern economic systems; four are rooted in the capitalist mode of production, and the remaining one is a bourgeoning socialist mode of production. The first and most common adaptation of the capitalist system in Africa is the Anglo-Saxon model. Anglo-Saxon capitalism has its roots in classical bourgeois political economic thoughts of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (Smith 2008). Anglo-Saxon capitalism was so christened by the Chicago school of economics in the 1970s. It was a capitalist system characterized by a state economic policy with low regulation, low taxation on the rich, limited public sector participation in capitalist business, and limited state expenditure on welfare services. It was about the state promotion of strong private rights, the enforcement of private contracts, the promotion of a relaxed environment for capitalist businesses, and the advancement of free trade. South Africa’s political economy runs a typical Anglo-Saxon capitalist economy. The second type is crony capitalism. Crony capitalism, as practiced in Africa, was a form of a degenerated Anglo-Saxon capitalist system in which businesses thrive not on the principles of risk-taking but rather as a return on money accumulated through a primitive relationship between the business and political classes. It was essentially a capitalist market environment that allows for preferential regulations and other government-favored interventions based on personal relationships and, most often, nepotism. The Nigerian social formation operates a crony capitalist economy under a very reactionary plutocratic political system. The third system is oligarchy capitalism, a capitalist system driven by a small fraction of the ruling class. The ruling class is most often backed by the force of an organized powerful group that has captured power based on its members’ wealth and influence. It is also a remnant of a feudal ruling class operating under the gamut of modern capitalist economy. Morocco has a typical oligarchy capitalist political economy in the northwestern fringe of Africa.

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The fourth model of capitalist systems is state capitalism: state-organized, private property, monopoly capitalism. It is also known as administrative capitalism, status capitalism, and a totalitarian state economy (Friedrich 1982). In this context, it is being used to simply refer to state-administered capitalism. Ghana and Senegal can be classified in this category. In these countries, the state directs the general plans, the direction for production, consumption, savings, and investment in the national economy. The other category of the African political economy type is rooted in the Socialist mode of production. Under a Socialist mode of production, conscious economic planning coordinates the production process. Economic output proceeds from the principle of “from each according to ability and to each according to need.” The working class effectively owns the means of production through cooperative enterprises and self-management. The accrued social surplus goes to the working class for the benefit of all. In Africa, Algeria typifies a Socialist mode of production. As a centrally planned economy with a history of a command structure, irrespective of the subsequent economic reforms, the Algerian political economy remained a disciplined and more efficient economy that has been able to withstand the tide of international economic crisis and maintained some stability.

References Abdullahi, B. Al-Qadi. 1994. Islamic Education in 18th Century Nigeria. Trans. Omar Bello. Sokoto: The Islamic Academy. Daryll, Ford, and Scott Richard. 1945. The Native Economics of Nigeria. London: Faber & Faber. Dual, G., and A.  Hjort. 1976. Having Herds: Pastoral Herd Growth and Household Economy. Oxford: University of Oxford. Engels, Fredderick. 1975. Anti-Duhring. Moscow: Progress Press. Friedrich, Pollock. 1982. State Capitalism: Its Possibilities and Limitations. In The Essential Frankfurt School Reader, ed. Andrew Arato and Eike Gebhardt. Los Angeles: University of California Press. Gareth, Austin. 2010. African Economic Development and Colonial Legacies. International Development Policy 11 (1): 11–32. Khaldun, Ibn. 2015. The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History. Trans. Franz Rosenthal. Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press/Oxford University Press. Macaulay, T.B. 1835. Macaulay’s Minutes on Education, February 2, 1835. London: British Parliament. Marx, Karl. 2010. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Vol. 1. Iowa: Create Space Publishers. Racz, Miklos. 1980. Review: Multilateral Imperialism. Social Scientist 8 (11): 58–67. Shanton, Robert W. 1985. The Development of Capitalism in Northern Nigeria. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Smith, Adam. 2008. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations: A Selected Edition by Kathryn Sutherland. Oxford: Oxford Paperbacks. Sule-Kano, Abdullahi. 2002. The Political Economy of Malnutrition in Nigeria 1926–1996: A Study of the Sokoto Area. Zaria: Ahmadu Bello University. ———. 2010. The Almajiri Phenomenon. The Humanities Journal 1 (1): 27–47.

CHAPTER 6

The Political Economy of Africa Ian Taylor

In discussing the political economy of Africa, an interesting ontological problem arises. As Mentan (2010: xi) notes: To understand Africa in global capitalism we may view it from two perspectives. That is, there are two ways of picturing Africa in the context of global capitalism. One is from the point of view of the people living and hoping to improve their lot in Africa’s fifty-four nation states with a considerable variety of kinds of “insertion” into the global capitalist economy, and a corresponding range of experiences of development (or lack of it). The other is from the point of view of capital, for which Africa is not so much a system of states, still less a continent of people in need of a better life, as simply a geographic—or geological—terrain, offering this or that opportunity for global capital to make money.

Most analyses—and certainly those provided by the media—reflect the latter understanding, one based on the point of view of capital, where poles of accumulation and sites of investment have been identified by various actors as spaces offering this or that opportunity for profit-making. In both the core and some emerging economies, a declining rate of profit means new markets have been sought after: the “need of a constantly expanding market for its products chase the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere” (Marx and Engels 1888/2004: 37). This chapter seeks to think through how Africa was inserted into the global capitalist system and how contemporary ongoing dynamics intensify Africa’s

I. Taylor (*) School of International Relations, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 S. O. Oloruntoba, T. Falola (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of African Political Economy, Palgrave Handbooks in IPE, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38922-2_6

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dependent position in the global economy. Indeed, the current process “deepens and intensifies Africa’s inveterate and deleterious terms of (mal)integration within the global political economy—terms which continue to be characterised by external dominance and socially-damaging and extraverted forms of accumulation” (Bracking and Harrison 2003: 9). This extraversion is significant, given that, contrary to the generally accepted wisdom, Africa is not marginal to the world. Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is, in fact, very well integrated into the global system and has been for centuries. Indeed, currently, foreign trade represents nearly half of the continent’s gross national product (GNP): compared to one-third for Asia and Latin America. Quantitatively, the continent is more, not less, globally integrated. However, the problem is the character of this integration. Obviously, the situation depends on national context, but broadly, “[a]s a result of their colonial legacy, the present-day economies of the African countries are characterised by a lop-sided dependence on the export of raw materials, and the import of manufactured goods” (Harris 1975: 12). That this assessment was written nearly forty years ago, and there has not been any radical departure from such a milieu for most countries, reflects the tragedy of much of Africa’s post-­ colonial trajectories. Recent developments in some African countries have been seized on as evidence that things have been changing. Some reports have suggested that manufacturing production in sub-Saharan Africa has more than doubled during the last decade. However, this is from a very low base and the share of manufacturing in Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP) has fallen from 19 per cent in 1975 to about 11 per cent in 2014. Current growth in Africa’s manufacturing sector is faster than the global average, but this is concentrated in a handful of countries; almost 70 per cent of SSA’s manufacturing activities are massed in just four countries: South Africa, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Kenya (Signé 2018: 5). While the continent, of course, has massive potential in this area, outside of these countries—with the possible addition of Ethiopia and Rwanda—it is too early to argue that we are witnessing any significant structural change vis-à-vis the continent’s industrialisation. Any analysis of Africa’s relations with external actors needs to be grounded in the above understanding of the dialectical relationships engendered. This necessarily recognises that “governments serve as the foreman to keep civil society producing a surplus to be accumulated by foreign finance capital and parasitic native social classes that enjoy almost absolutist power” (Mentan 2010: xii). Despite the celebration of “democratisation” across the continent and the attempts to link this to Africa’s recent growth spurt, there is little evidence that, overall, the quality of Africa’s democracies is improving or that governance is dramatically improving across the continent. This brings us to a fundamental issue vis-à-vis the political economy of Africa: modes of governance.

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The State-Society Complex in Africa Due to the manner in which colonialism created states in Africa and the nature of the independence process in most African countries, the ruling classes lacked hegemony over society (Gramsci 1971). By the ruling class, we mean the senior political elites and bureaucrats, the leading members of the liberal professions, the nascent bourgeoisie and the top members of the security arms of the state (Markovitz 1987: 8). The early years of post-colonial nationalism in Africa were, broadly speaking, an attempt to build a hegemonic project that bound society together around more issues than simply discontent with the imperial powers. This project quickly collapsed into autocracy and failure, a process accelerated by dynamics linked to the Cold War and to the failure by the new political leaders to make a decisive break from the past: “the nationalist movement which arose from the contradictions of the colonial economy achieved political independence, not economic independence” (Ake 1981: 93). Consequently, unlike the ascending bourgeoisie of Europe, which transformed all political and economic institutions into its own image and became socially hegemonic, the petit-bourgeoisie in Africa has no criteria of its own, it merely inherited colonial institutions with which the mass of the people did not identify. (Nabudere 2011: 58)

Of course, “Africa’s leaders are neither autonomous nor robots; they reflect diverse class and fractional interests located within the continent but separable from their extra-continental connections” (Shaw 1985: 5). These interests vary from state to state and within each state too: “state power rests in the hands of a local class or classes which constitute the ruling class. This class or classes have their own class interests arising from the place they occupy in social production” (Shivji 1980: 740). How the centralised organs of the state relate to the external depends on the positions of various domestic classes and the balance of forces between the external and the internal. Indeed, “African interests can expel and exclude external interests should they wish to do so. In practice they rarely exercise this option, preferring to modify the ‘balance of power’ over time through almost continuous negotiation” (ibid.: 11). Whilst “[c]ondemnation there must be; but compassion too, for those who talked so boldly about freedom but had so little room for manoeuvre” (First 1982: 465), this dialectic is central to any analysis of Africa’s international relations and the agency of African governments. In addition, as history has repeatedly shown, if and when an African leader does seek to strike out on an independent path inimical to perceived capitalist interests, a price is invariably paid—as the fates of Lumumba, Nkrumah, Cabral, Sankara and others attest. Within the realm of the superstructure, moral and political modes that rise above notions of economic-corporate interests and instead reflect broader ethico-­political ones have remained missing. Consequently, because the ruling classes have been unable to preside over a hegemonic project that is viewed as

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legitimate, they have been forced to revert to modalities of governance that seek to dominate. These are commonly expressed through both the threat and actual use of violence and the immediate disbursal of material benefits to supporters within the context of neopatrimonial regimes. Without these twin strategies, the ruling elites in much of Africa cannot maintain order. After all, “the state [in Africa], unlike the bourgeois state, is not entrenched in the society as a whole. It is…a bureaucratic connivance” (Mafeje 1992: 31). Whatever ideological legitimacy, “in the sense of a theoretical legitimation of the status quo[,]…is expressed in the concept of ‘development,’ which is ‘that which we are all in favour of’ and given statistical respectability in figures measuring the growth of commodity production” (Williams 1980: 40). Beyond such rhetoric however, the substance of this belief in “development” is pretty thin. The sort of political culture that has matured has had important consequences for Africa, further adding to the problematique of underdevelopment. Here, a brief definition of what we mean is required. The orthodox criterion is the per capita measurement of national income, used in a rather formalised comparative fashion. This chapter follows Tamás Szentes’ objection to such quantitative indices as “they do not point out qualitative sameness and differences” (1971: 25). Underdevelopment is a much too multifaceted phenomenon, irreducible to mere quantitative portrayals. Instead, there are two aspects, two sides of underdevelopment: the basically external, international aspect, which, from the historical point of view of the emergence of the present state, is the primary aspect; and the internal aspect, which from the point of view of future development, is increasingly important. (Ibid.: 163)

In short, “poverty [is] not the result of some historical game of chance in which [Africa] happened to be the losers; it [is] the result of a set of economic relationships, rooted in the colonial era, that [has] served to enrich a minority by impoverishing the majority” (Adamson 2013: 12). In general, the modes of governance in Africa have encouraged despotism and unpredictability. As a result, for most of the post-colonial period, much of Africa has been trapped in cycles of crises, which have stimulated societal conflict. Although Africa’s elites undoubtedly command the state apparatus with varying levels of intensity, their own practices often undermine and subvert the state’s institutions on a daily basis. The relative autonomy of the state is absent and their rule is intrinsically unstable, even though many manage to tenaciously cling to power (Fatton 1999). There is very little political space to allow reforms that would construct a stable hegemonic project that bound different levels of society together. Instead, what exist are intrinsically unstable, personalised systems of domination. Corruption is the cement that binds the system together and links the patron and their predatory ruling class together. If political elites do ever articulate a vision for the country, “their notion of emerging out of economic backwardness amounts essentially to Westernisation…[where] the general trend is to try and stimulate economic growth within the context

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of the existing neocolonial economic structure” (Ake 1981: 139). This is indeed an accurate appraisal of the contemporary “development strategies,” which characterise much of Africa, only now with Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) included, furthering the continent’s underdevelopment. Underdevelopment is a dynamic—not static—condition: it is a relationship that expresses a particular relationship of exploitation: namely, the exploitation of one country by another. All of the countries named as ‘underdeveloped’ in the world are exploited by others; and the underdevelopment with which the world is now pre-occupied is a product of capitalist, imperialist and colonialist exploitation. (Rodney 2012: 14)

The external domination of Africa’s economies and the pathologies of dependency that this engenders, constructed during the colonial period, have proven markedly resilient. “The root dilemma of Africa’s economic development has been the asymmetry between the role of the continent in the world and the degree to which that world…has penetrated Africa” (Austen 1987: 271). Broadly speaking, [t]he rigidity of the international division of labour has not allowed African economies to break out of the role of primary producers, for reasons which include lack of access to technology, the comparative advantage of the industrialised nations in manufacturing, and the constraints of the domestic market. (Ake 1981: 92)

Indeed, African economies are integrated into the very economies of the developed economies in a way that is unfavourable to Africa and ensures structural dependence. In short, the geo-economy of [Africa] depends on two production systems that determine its structures and define its place in the global system: 1) the export of “tropical” agricultural products: coffee, cocoa, cotton, peanuts, fruits, oil palm, etc.; and 2) hydrocarbons and minerals: copper, gold, rare metals, diamonds, etc. (Amin 2010: 30)

This has not radically changed since independence.

External Trade Dynamics The 2000s saw a period when African per capita growth figures (if taken at face value) were relatively high and were sustained for a decade or so. This had been constructed on the back of “a commodity price boom that was unprecedented in its magnitude and duration. The real prices of energy and metals more than doubled in five years from 2003 to 2008, while the real price of food

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commodities increased 75%” (Erten and Ocampo 2013: 14). To a large degree, this was intimately linked to new trading geographies and the emergence of “non-traditional” actors in Africa. The commodity price hike of the first decade of the twenty-first century was credited to the robust growth performance by emerging economies (particularly China). Indeed, China was a central driver of high prices in a significant number of commodities (Akyüz 2012). The increase in the activities of emerging economies across Africa was then said to be reshaping Africa’s international relations. Analyses during this period (c. 2000–2014) had a strong evangelical aspect to them, suggesting that Africa has turned a corner and that the emerging economies have been decisive in propelling this actuality. Indeed, the “Africa Rising” mantra barely saw a week pass by without some new official report, media article or conference eulogising Africa and its growth figures. Africa moved from one extreme to another and now became the “rising star” (The Economist, December 3, 2011). In late 2012, Time magazine’s December 3 edition was emblazoned with the headline “Africa Rising,” capturing a certain l’esprit du temps in some quarters. Other observers argued that we were living in “Africa’s moment” (Severino and Ray 2001), where it was now “Africa’s turn” (Miguel 2009). In this new world, “Africa emerges” (Rotberg 2013), moving from “darkness to destiny” (Clarke 2012) where it is “leading the way” (Radelet 2010). In fact, we were told, “The Next Asia Is Africa” (French 2012: 3) based on an “African Growth Miracle” (Young 2012). In its more excitable moments, we were even told “[w]hy Africa will rule the 21st century” (African Business, January 2013: 16). Previous studies on the political economy of Africa were dismissed as “Afro-pessimism,” to be swept away by this new Africa. “The Ultimate Frontier Market” (Matean 2012), for example, was automatically and uncritically extended to announcements about the unlimited potential for capital accumulation and profit to be made in this new frontier. However, the “Africa rising” discourse neglected a most fundamental context: only nine of the forty-three [sub-Saharan] countries were growth rates during 1980-2008 high enough to double per capita income in less than thirty years, and only sixteen in less than one hundred years. Performance would have been considerably worse had it not been for the brief years of relatively rapid growth in the mid-2000s. (Weeks 2010: 3)

Africa needs to grow at least 7 per cent a year for the next twenty or thirty years if any serious tackling of continental poverty is to be realised. Yet growth induced by commodity price increases, new discoveries of natural resources or increase in sources of foreign capital “is simply not sustainable” (Amoako 2011: 24). What GDP growth that did occur was

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overwhelmingly characterised by the deployment and inflow of capital-intensive investment for the extraction and exportation of African natural resources. There [was] a distinct lack of value added on the African side. The principal focus of this activity [was] in oil which not only offers limited opportunities for local employment, but also deliberately and actively seeks to avoid the hiring of African labour for fear of encountering resistance and the costs of appeasing affected local communities. (Southall 2008: 148)

Problematically: While the hope of the development literature has been that higher rates of inflow of capital investment will have downstream effects on African employment (through increased government revenues and spending alongside an injection of consumer wealth into local economies), there [was] little evidence that this [took] place on a substantial scale. The fundamental reason for this [was] that the [growth] rests heavily on the engagements of foreign governments and corporations with African elites. (Ibid.: 149)

In most African countries thus far, internal and external dynamics have precluded sustainable and broad-based development. Unless dramatic changes are made at both levels, this trajectory is likely to continue. In late 2012, the Deputy Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa Abdalla Hamdok noted that Africa’s relatively good economic growth performance over the past decade had been driven mostly by non-­ renewable natural resources and high commodity prices. Alongside this, he noted that deindustrialisation had been a key feature, with the share of manufacturing in Africa’s GDP falling from 15 per cent in 1990 to 10 per cent in 2008, which coincided with an increase in unemployment (Addis Tribune, December 8, 2012). McMillan and Rodrik (2011), in fact, show that since 1990, Africa had experienced a relative shift in the composition of employment towards sectors that create too few high productivity jobs. Manufacturing growth has been near the bottom in twelve growth sectors—only public administration lagged. This, of course, is not to write off the growth as devoid of any value at all. At the minimum, improved fiscal space is being generated. Retail sectors are growing, with revenue increasing by around 4 per cent per year, and there is growing investment in infrastructure (McKinsey Global Institute 2010). Given that there is a correlation “between infrastructure and export diversification, and the current low levels and distorted composition of exports from SSA are partly due to poor trade infrastructure,” it can be stated that the improvement in infrastructure “has per se a positive impact on SSA growth and trade capacity” (Sindzingre 2013: 44). Africa’s debts have fallen, partly due to the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC) and the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI) and partly due to improved management (although note that “in spite of the HIPC initiative, only half of SSA countries have witnessed a temporary reduction of their annual debt service” (Petithomme 2013: 119)).

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In social sectors, performance was varied, but increases in the years of schooling were reported across the continent, albeit unevenly. Health outcomes, particularly life expectancy at birth, also generally improved—in some countries substantially. These are all obviously to be welcomed. However, there was (and remains) a desperate need to convert natural resources and high commodity prices into structural change, “defined as an increase in the share of industry or services in the economy, or as the diversification and sophistication of exports…or as the shift of workers from sectors with low labour productivity to those with high labour productivity” (Sindzingre 2013: 26). This did not happen. Instead, with the arrival of emerging economies in Africa alongside traditional trade associates, the historical process of underdevelopment was further entrenched. It is true that the emergence of new or “non-traditional” actors in Africa opened varying degrees of space for African elites to manoeuvre. Problematically, however, this was seized on as evidence of a new and emerging set of dynamics in international politics, one that created room for alternatives to neoliberal capitalism. Walter Mignolo, for example, asserted that “[t]he economic success of the BRICS countries comes from the fact that the leadership is engaged in epistemic economic disobedience vis-à-vis the IMF [International Monetary Fund] and World Bank” (2012: 43). Martyn Davies of Frontier Advisory (a research, strategy and investment advisory firm) similarly asserted about the BRICS that “[a]fter the onset of the (Western) financial crisis of 2008, there [was] a deep questioning of the free market ideology” (Financial Times, March 25, 2013). This naïveté needs challenging. Such jubilation is somewhat redolent of Bill Warren’s thesis (1973), which argued that the Third World, under the effect of local industrial development, was storming ahead to play a progressive role in reducing the gap between the core and the developing world. Yet, then as now, such predictions were based on growth per capita figures which seemed to suggest a noteworthy redistribution of world industrial power. However, as McMichael et al. (1974) wrote in their rebuttal of Warren’s argument: To measure distribution of world industrial power by “growth rates” of industry, which include economies starting from the barest minimum of industrial production and cover a generation, is delightful simplicity. The volume of production, the level of technology, the research capabilities, the allocation of resources, the development of education and the use of manpower, are equally or more relevant to measuring the historic capacity of a country to become a significant industrial power. Warren wishes to prove a “redistribution” of industrial power, but can only scrape up a one per cent difference in the industrial growth rate between the imperial centres and the Third World: a very slender reed upon which to hang such a weighty claim!

This might be reflected upon today. After all, “growth is a quantitative process, involving principally the extension of an already established structure of

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production, whereas development suggests qualitative changes, the creation of new economic and non-economic structure” (Dowd 1967: 153). Indeed: Emergence is not measured by a rising rate of GDP growth (or exports)…nor the fact that the society in question has obtained a higher level of GDP per capita, as defined by the World Bank, aid institutions controlled by Western powers, and conventional economists. Emergence involves much more: a sustained growth in industrial production in the state [or region] in question and a strengthening of the capacity of these industries to be competitive on a global scale (Amin 2014: 139).

This analysis chimes with the generalised situation of export-led jobless growth in Africa, which historically has characterised the times when commodity prices are high.

Path Dependency? It hardly needs repeating here that most commodity-rich African countries have poor records in terms of inequality, human development indices and the like. With a few exceptions, such as Botswana (which is, however, an extremely unequal society—see Taylor 2003), many are corrupt entities managed by leaders at the apex of neopatrimonial systems. These elites have been previously quite happy to extract rent from Western corporations wishing to exploit their country’s resources. What is perhaps now new in Africa’s political economy is the range of competitors vying for attention. As Rampa et al. (2012: 248) note, “It is clear that growing presence [of emerging economies] on the continent brings trade, massive investment in infrastructure and resources development. Politically it helps Africa become more assertive in the world and increases development aid and technical assistance.” This should not, however be seen in terms of India versus China or France versus the United States but is rather an expression of inter-capitalist competition, something that has long been integral to the global system. What the emerging economies bring are more competitors and, at times, different business practices, but the broad pattern remains the same. Yet, we were told confidently that “[T]he Africa-pessimists have got it wrong” (presumably including The Economist a few years ago) as “the engines of development are still going strong. Democratic governance, political participation and economic management look set to improve further” (Economist, March 2, 2013). The patterns of continuity are, of course, taking place within the context of global capitalism, which historically has generated growth in the centres and peripheries but in different ways: Whereas at the centre growth is development—that is, it has an integrating effect—in the periphery growth is not development, for its effect is to ­disarticulate. Strictly speaking, growth in the periphery, based on integration into the world market, is the development of underdevelopment. (Amin 1974: 18–19)

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What was remarkable about the “Africa rising” discourse was that this was generally ignored: growth was fetishised and taken as a good thing in its own right. There was no acknowledgement that what occurred reflected an ongoing trend of polarisation, where there is “the concurrent construction of dominant centres and dominated peripheries, and their reproduction deepening in each state” and continent (Amin 2004: 13). Exploitation by capitalist productive relationships and the appropriation of Africa’s economic surpluses characterise the continent’s political economies. Such a milieu encourages visionless African elites to focus on the static comparative advantages of the spaces they control. Given the weak levels of diversification and strong concentrations in specific export sectors, it is remarkable that a narrative has been built that claims that Africa is “rising” in the absence of any indication of a widening domestic manufacturing base or actual industrialisation. This is problematic, given that a task ahead for Africa is to develop an industrial base that can assist the agricultural sector in its growth and transformation. Both of these sectors could potentially compose the engines of development but only under conditions where the exigencies of global capital were not paramount and where domestic and internal requirements of various social formations were prioritised. Moving away from allowing global capitalism to dictate the pace rather than the logic of domestic development is absolutely central. Yet, in the context of the new trading geographies being crafted, many extant pathologies are being reproduced, even reified, within the political economies of many African countries. As one commentator put it, the BRIC’s trading approach towards Africa, while favouring bilateral trade, does not encourage a…necessary African coherence and regional integration. Rather, such an approach that is based on mutual benefits, and thus not necessarily need-­ based, marginalises countries with lower income, while favouring resource rich countries. (Mbaye, no date: 3)

Such dynamics also reproduce dependency. As is well known, due to the colonial experience Africa was inserted into the global division of labour in a particular fashion. This is broadly recognised, and the effect has been to generate and reproduce underdevelopment. A central characteristic of capitalism is “development at one pole and underdevelopment at the other” (Smith 1990: 188). This may be graphically witnessed in Africa. As James Ferguson (2006: 38) has noted: Capital does not “flow” from New York to Angola’s oil fields, or from London to Ghana’s gold mines; it hops, neatly skipping over most of what is in between. Second, where capital has been coming to Africa at all, it has largely been ­concentrated in spatially segregated, socially “thin” mineral-extraction enclaves. Again, the “movement of capital” here does not cover the globe; it connects discrete points on it.

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Replace New York with Brasilia or London with Beijing and the same logic of spatially uneven investment applies to the dynamics of other, “non-­traditional” partners with Africa. Of course, the extraction of economic surplus by global corporations without reinvesting it to transform agriculture and industry has been a key feature of Africa’s political economy since independence; compliant elites collaborate in this venture (Amin 2002). This has contributed to a state of “permanent crisis” on the continent (Van de Walle 2001): African economies exhibit very low level of diversification. By all measures and accounts, there has been limited diversification of exports by the African economies. Over the last 25 years or so, there has been very little change towards improved diversification in the African economies in general. (Ben Hammouda et al. n.d.: 11)

What diversification that has occurred has been volatile. This is extremely problematic, given that African economies have become more concentrated, whilst according to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), “The diversification of African economies is one way through which the recent economic growth achievements could be sustained…diversification is a prerequisite to achieving positive development in the continent” (UNECA 2007: 115, emphasis added). Half of the countries in Africa derive over 80 per cent of their merchandise export income from commodities (UNCTAD 2012: 21). During the period of so-called “Africa rising”, [b]y diverting resources from non-raw material sectors and contributing to real exchange-rate appreciation, a price boom runs the risk of locking developing-­ country commodity exporters into what Leamer called the “raw-material corner,” with little scope for industrial progress or skills advancement. (Ibid.)

Leamer (1987) illustrated both relative factor endowments and relative factor intensities with three factors and any number of goods. Given Africa’s factor endowments being concentrated in commodities and the export profile and sector concentration being in the same, raw-material corner that has been the continent’s broad fate: During colonisation and the period immediately after, the structure of external trade of African countries were mainly determined by the needs of the colonial masters. African countries mainly exported natural resources such as timber and minerals and imported manufactured goods. About six decades later, this structure of trade has not been significantly altered. Invariably, African countries have continually and consistently not managed to diversify trade into manufactured products. (Afari-Gyan 2010: 63)

The result has been what Shivji (2009: 59) terms “structural disarticulation,” where Africa exhibits a “disarticulation between the structure of production

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and the structure of consumption. What is produced is not consumed and what is consumed is not produced.” Ake (1981) has convincingly demonstrated that this disarticulation is a major feature of Africa’s political economy and a key factor behind the continent’s underdevelopment. While low commodity prices foster palpable problems, even high commodity prices can generate major problems and fashion a trap of sorts, obliging countries and producers to decide between immediate profits (highly attractive for unstable and predatory regimes) and future long-term sustainability. For instance, both Algeria and Nigeria have fallen prey to over optimistic spending habits during commodity booms, using current and expected profits to finance social and/or politically motivated projects. Such programmes can quickly become unsustainable when commodity prices drop, but are typically very tricky for politicians to cut, and so tend to get funded out of borrowed money, adding to a country’s debt burden. (Brown et al. 2008)

Exports from Africa to the BRICS broadly exhibit a very clear and continuous pattern in terms of commodity structure that is consistent with Africa’s Ricardian advantage in commodity production, with extractive commodities dominating. In turn, Africa’s imports are dominated by manufactured goods. The emergence of China and India and other emerging economies has reinforced Africa’s comparative advantage in the production of resource-based commodities, and this runs the risk of intensifying the continent’s resource dependence (Goldstein et al. 2005). Indeed, as the IMF (2011: 15) warns, the prominence of commodities in LICs’ exports to BRICs has heightened concerns about the pattern of specialisation of many LICs and implications for growth over the medium to long term. These concerns are not new but may now appear more daunting given BRIC-induced commodity booms. They are typically expressed as a fear that commodity exports exert upward pressures on real exchange rates and make manufactured exports uncompetitive—a standard “Dutch disease” effect…or a worry that, contrary to diversification into manufacturing or new business services, specialisation in primary commodities does not allow for strong productivity gains that will sustain high growth rates. Some have also raised concerns that for some commodities, demand from China and India is mainly for unprocessed goods (compared to demand from advanced economies where satisfying production standards implies a need for more value-added), adding to the risk that LICs could be trapped into low value-added production structures.

In short, such processes are simply the diversification of dependency (what the IMF calls “the pattern of specialisation”), with Africa being further trapped into low value-added production structures. This is hardly a credible alternative development model for the continent. Instead, such processes rather reflect “a significant spatial reorganisation of global capitalism, together with intensified

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processes of primitive accumulation” (Ayers 2013: 13). It is this reality that evidences the symptoms of economic growth and talks of the “new scramble for Africa” (see Carmody 2011). Indeed, since the upsurge of interest in Africa by the BRICS, amongst others, very few signs of social transformation in Africa have appeared. In fact, there have been signs of deindustrialisation. The growth and governance models being pursued in Africa are based on facilitating market-based actors’ profit-­ making and capital accumulation but generally ignore conditions that enhance production; the existing growth model is based on a simplistic raising of national GDPs (Hamilton 2003). Governments “focus their attention heavily on the main tables, especially the gross domestic product (GDP), and the international agencies reinforce this bias” (Kpedekpo and Arya 1981: 208). As noted previously, in the context of the “Africa rising” trope, this is massively problematic, given the accuracy of African statistics.

The Political Economy/Ecology of Growth GDP growth is routinely used as the major benchmark against which success is considered. This is then used to argue that Africa has turned a corner and is the “next Asia.” This fixation on growth stems from developments within the discipline of economics: “From the 1960s on, GDP conquered the political scene and affirmed itself as the supreme indicator of modernity and progress. Everything else (e.g. environmental sustainability, social justice, poverty eradication) were sacrificed on the altar of economic growth” (Fioramonti 2013: 51). In the 1990s, this measurement of one indicator of the economy as being the yardstick to measure progress and enable pundits to speak about the trajectories of, for example, the BRICS or “Africa rising”: In 1992, the GNP was superseded by GDP….Traditional GNP referred to all goods and services produced by the resident of a given country, regardless of whether the “income” was generated within or outside its borders. This meant that, for instance, the earnings of multinational corporations were attributed to the country where the firm was owned and where the profits would eventually return. With the introduction of the gross “domestic” product, this calculation changed completely. GDP is indeed territorially defined, which means that the income generated by foreign companies is “formally” attributed to the country where it is generated, even though the profits may very well not remain there. This conceptual evolution…was by and large responsible for the economic boom of many developing nations. Yet, it is obvious that the gains it revealed were more than apparent than real. (Fioramonti 2013: 41)

Given the capital-intensive nature of much investment in the resource sectors of Africa by foreign corporations (BRICS-originated or otherwise), one can imagine how it distorts reporting on Africa’s growth based on GDP rather than GNP. Yet, it is precisely the GDP figures that are bandied about.

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Furthermore, little or no consideration is paid to the long-term implications of how these growth rates have been accomplished. Minerals resource extraction is, by definition, non-renewable. In the current milieu of dependent relations, Africa’s wealth is being taken out of the continent at an exponential rate by an ever-diversifying array of actors. All the while, this is being celebrated as Africa’s gain. In fact, “the continent is actually losing a net 6% of the gross national income each year, thanks to the Resource Curse writ large” (Bond 2014: 237). “GDP calculates such exports as a solely positive process (a credit) without a corresponding debit on the books of a country’s natural capital” (Bond 2011: 39), despite the fact that there is an actual “decline in ‘natural capital’ that occurs because the minerals and petroleum are non-renewable and lost forever” (Bond 2014: 237). The World Bank itself recommended in 2006 that subtracting the value of non-renewable resources through extraction gave a superior indicator of actual gains made through trade. This was termed “genuine saving” (GS) and is a measure of net investment produced by natural and human capital: Genuine saving provides a much broader indicator of sustainability by valuing changes in natural resources, environmental quality, and human capital, in addition to the traditional measure of changes in produced assets. Negative genuine saving rates imply that total wealth is in decline. (World Bank 2006: 66)

This has massive implications for the “Africa Rising” narrative, given that the majority of this “rising” has been built on non-renewable extraction and that resource-rich countries are historically the poorest genuine savers (Atkinson and Hamilton 2003). In fact, “[w] ith the exception of Algeria and Guinea, for whom GS was just above zero for the period 1970–2001, every country with an average share of fuel and mineral exports in total exports of over 60% had negative GS” (Dietz et al. 2007: 35). As Bond (2011: 40) notes in his critique of the whole “Africa Rising” trope, using Genuine Savings (GS) as the measurement: Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria, fell from a GDP in 2000 of $297 per person to negative $210  in genuine savings, mainly because the value of oil extracted was subtracted from its net wealth. Even the most industrialised African country, South Africa, suffer[ed] from the resource curse: instead of a per person GDP of $2,837 in 2000, the more reasonable way to measure wealth results in genuine savings declining to negative $2 per person that year.

Obviously, calculations of GDP do not make deductions for the depreciation of fabricated assets or for the depletion and degradation of natural resources. Thus, a country can have very high growth rates calculated using GDP indicators, whilst embarking on a short-term and unsustainable exploitation of its finite resources. Consequently, the idea of GS traces its roots back to the work

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of economists such as Solow (1974) and Hartwick (1977), whose work sought to model a development path where social welfare did not deteriorate in economies based on the exploitation of non-renewable resources. GS or adjusted net savings, thus, measures the true rate of savings in an economy, after taking into account investment in human capital, the decline in asset values through the extraction of natural resources, and damage caused by pollution. Persistently low or negative GS are indicators that a country’s trajectory is unmaintainable, whilst negative adjusted net saving rates in themselves demonstrate that the total wealth of a country is in decline. Table 6.1 shows a representation of both GDP growth rates (the indicator used to celebrate “Africa Rising”) and the adjusted net saving rates. The table compares the year 2000 with 2008, the year for which the latest data are available. Of interest is the comparison (and contrast) between the two different indicators. Equally, the difference between the 2000 and 2008 figures using the GS statistics shows the sustainability (or the lack thereof) of African countries’ current paths. All figures are from the World Bank (Table 6.1). The above figures are seldom included in standard GDP measurements, despite the fact that “[t] he policy implications of measuring genuine savings are quite direct: persistently negative rates of genuine savings must lead, eventually, to declining wellbeing” (Hamilton and Clemens 1999: 352). Beyond this depletion of finite resources and a subsequent negative debit on a country’s stock, inequality has been reinscribed during this boom: “There is evidence that economic disparities in resource-rich countries are rising with economic growth, dampening the potential for poverty reduction” (Africa Progress Panel 2013: 27). According to one source, three ongoing crises currently exist: Africa is affected via reduced demand and lower prices for their exports, reduced financial flows and falling remittances; climate change remains unchecked; and malnutrition and hunger are on the rise, propelled by the recent inflation in global food prices (Addison et al. 2011). This would remain unknown if the “Africa rising” narrative was taken at face value and the celebration of the arrival of the BRICS in Africa was uncritically digested. In addition, not only has this model of growth promotion so far been unsuccessful in generating sustainable developmental outcomes, it has made things worse regarding issues such as equality, the environment and Africa’s dependent status within the global political economy. As Jerven (2010: 146) notes, “[t] he most recent period of economic growth did not entail the large improvements in human development that were the case from 1950–1975.…Furthermore, the latest period of economic growth has not been associated with much industrial growth.” This has gone hand in hand with, as has been pointed out, no serious structural change in the continent’s economies; indeed, they are linked.

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Table 6.1  GDP growth rate and adjusted net savings in Africa: 2000 and 2008 (author’s calculation) GDP growth rate (%) 2000 Algeria Angola Benin Botswana Burkina Faso Burundi Cameroon Cape Verde Central African Republic Chad Comoros Congo, DR Congo-B Cote d’Ivoire Djibouti Egypt Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Ethiopia Gabon Gambia Ghana Guinea Guinea-Bissau Kenya Lesotho Liberia Libya Madagascar Malawi Mali Mauritania Mauritius Morocco Mozambique Namibia Niger Nigeria Rwanda Sao Tome Senegal Seychelles Sierra Leone Somalia

2.2 3.0 4.9 5.9 1.8 −0.9 4.2 7.3 −2.5 −0.9 1.4 −6.9 7.6 −3.7 0.4 5.4 12.5 −3.1 6.1 −1.9 5.5 3.7 2.5 3.6 0.6 5.1 25.7 3.7 4.8 1.6 3.2 −0.4 9.0 1.6 1.1 3.5 −1.4 5.4 8.3 3.2 4.2 6.7

Adjusted net savings 2000 16.02 −32.75 2.58 48.79 −1.00 −7.55 2.93 – 1.12 0.58 4.90 −12.51 −40.75 5.37 −2.52 8.50 −7.08 −2.22 1.29 0.13 6.33 5.96 3.15 −10.45 6.96 15.25 – – 1.67 4.41 9.21 −15.12 18.13 18.83 2.55 20.81 −3.44 – 5.06 – – – −11.26 –

GDP growth rate (%) 2008 2.4 13.8 5.0 3.7 5.8 5.0 2.6 6.2 2.0 −0.4 1.0 6.2 5.6 2.3 7.2 16.8 −9.8 10.8 1.0 5.7 8.4 4.9 10.5 1.5 5.7 10.5 3.8 7.1 8.3 5.0 3.5 5.5 5.6 6.8 3.4 9.6 6.0 11.2 9.1 3.7 −1.9 5.3

Adjusted net savings 2008 21.36 −42.63 – 37.17 – – – – −4.59 −49.89 7.04 −2.49 −57.11 1.68 – 2.06 −38.45 – 8.94 3.56 3.87 −6.55 −11.31 16.63 10.21 19.41 – – 6.99 25.06 – – 8.48 19.83 −4.58 9.87 – – 20.08 – 12.21 – −0.96 – (continued)

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Table 6.1  (continued) GDP growth rate (%) 2000 South Africa Sudan Swaziland Tanzania Togo Tunisia Uganda Zambia Zimbabwe

4.2 8.4 1.8 4.9 −0.8 4.7 3.1 3.5 −3.1

Adjusted net savings 2000 4.75 −10.32 7.40 12.58 −8.94 16.94 1.89 −9.73 5.32

GDP growth rate (%) 2008 3.6 3.0 2.4 7.4 2.2 4.6 8.7 6.0 −17.7

Adjusted net savings 2008 −3.45 −13.13 7.14 – – 6.98 3.27 −0.71 –

Conclusion The much-vaunted economic growth in Africa during the period of “Africa rising” was based on trade in resources, not production. Such growth is problematic, given that “production is the key to accumulation since the profits of all capital, even merchant capital that operates exclusively in the sphere of circulation, originate in the sphere of production” (Kay 1975: 71). The economic advantages of current trade accrue to the accumulation centres outside of Africa. The result is that the role of Africa was (and continues to be) reified as a source of cheap raw materials, exported to feed external economies and/or processed up the value chain into finished products: Since the surpluses that could lead to industrial investments are not forthcoming, the peripheral nations seem condemned to be producers of raw materials in perpetuity. The economic landscape then is weak industrial development, chronic balance of payment problems all under the management of a neocolonial comprador class. (Amaizo 2012: 127)

This is a chronic problem for Africa, given that building up capabilities in manufacturing and improving the productivity of agriculture are the levers to wealth creation, with suitable pro-poor policies aimed at equitable and sustainable development at the heart of long-term poverty reduction. Uncomfortably, [t]he basis of recurring growth in African has always been strong external demand. Growth has not been triumphant and the end of growth periods has ended with a combination of predatory rent-seeking and depressed external markets. The recent boom was one-sided, based on external market demand for natural resources. (Jerven 2010: 146)

This is a serious issue and when Africa’s insertion into the global political economy is discussed, this reality of dependency is critical, particularly when the

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issue of development is deliberated. “Economic development usually refers to sustainable economic growth accompanied by significant structural change in production patterns and generalised improvement in living standards” (Whitfield 2012: 241). Relationships based on extraction have not historically worked as a catalyst for this outcome. The idea of development has commonly been an alternative word for industrialisation, and economic history proves that unless economies are moving up the value chain, they will be stuck in the rut of trading on commodities that simply provide diminishing returns in the medium to long term. Unless an economy is engaged in activities that deliver increasing returns over time (as found in manufacturing production), then the economy is not developing; it is just growing. The problem is that neoliberal economists argue that economies must integrate into the global economy using their notional comparative advantages. If this means focusing on primary commodity extraction, then so be it. In this (entirely erroneous) reading, the simple existence of upward GDP growth and flourishing trade volumes (not the quality thereof) are seen as evidence of success. This is on what the discourse about “Africa rising” was based upon. The actual political economy of Africa, however, reveals something quite different.

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CHAPTER 7

Streets and Boardrooms as Hegemonic Spaces in Shaping Political Economy in Africa Dung Pam Sha

Introduction This chapter attempts to answer the following questions: Why are the streets, commonly known for their transport and commercial functions, becoming spaces for contesting public policy and redefining political economy in Africa? Why have boardrooms of African States become dominant in defining political economy? What has been the impact of the contest between the streets and the boardroom on political economy? How can the tension between the streets and the boardrooms be reduced or eliminated?

Street Protests Geographically, the street means a paved road. It is still sometimes used colloquially as a synonym for road. It is seen as a public thoroughfare (usually paved) in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. Examples of streets include pedestrian streets, lanes, and city-centre streets too crowded for road vehicles to pass. Sociologically, the streets are spaces used by the high and the low in society. A street may assume the role of a town square for its regular users. It provides a platform for social interaction among the people who live and work on a particular street. The street can often serve as the catalyst for the neighbourhood’s prosperity, culture, and solidarity ­(dictionary.com).

D. P. Sha (*) Department of Political Science, University of Jos, Jos, Nigeria © The Author(s) 2020 S. O. Oloruntoba, T. Falola (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of African Political Economy, Palgrave Handbooks in IPE, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38922-2_7

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Politically, the street has been a space where different classes of people gather to discuss, protest, and sometimes violently demand for their rights. The movement that is often referred to as “Occupy Wall Street” is an example of street politics. It is shown that: Occupy Wall Street and its partners…[represent] merely a slim layer of a much deeper and profound anger, disillusionment, and desperation within a growing segment of the population—a sense that the system is deeply flawed and that matters cannot go on as they are. Deep political and social turmoil is roiling the nation and the world. Mass unemployment, especially felt among the youngest workers; massive student debt; operative and incipient “austerity” programs; bailouts and tax hand-outs to the corporate sector; endless bankrupting, imperialist war and its intensification and extension by Obama—these are the matters motivating such expression. The unrest will grow in the coming months, and Occupy Wall Street will appear to have been a predictive symptom of a burgeoning revolutionary potential. This revolutionary potential, however, will remain just that, unless it is wedded to the mass of the workers and is guided by sound theoretical principles and the profound lessons of political history. (Hjelm, Titus 2004)

The streets in Africa are often used by individual or group actors. They may be individual associations or alliance or coalition of groups. They may be trade unions, labour movements, labour-civil society coalitions, professional associations (like medical doctors, students, musicians), informal sector associations, religious bodies, pan-ethnic associations, moderate opposition members (who became radicalised by a movement), or maximalist opposition groups to a ruling party or regime. The factors responsible for either class unity or social movement solidarity amongst actors who engage in street actions include three elements: (1) rise in class and political consciousness due to the material conditions of members (exploitation, deprivation, marginalisation, oppression, repression, etc.); (2) rise in political organising and the emergence of platforms that pursue members’ interests; and (3) ability of individuals and groups in creating cross-associational understanding towards the attainment of common goals. In Africa, today, street actions have taken the form of occupy street actions, strike actions, and street protests by students, and women and faithbased groups. The military is used to truncate popular protests. Studies in group dynamics reveal that street actions are successful when the following are present: (1) an issue that agitates the minds of citizens; (2) leadership provided by a small/inner group/or caucus; (3) propaganda started by the small group; (4) mobilisation of like-minds using the media and leaflets; (5) creation of a real or imagine enemy who is seen as working against the common interest; (6) increase in passions and emotions which then ignites protests, usually peaceful in the first instance; (7) leadership control of the group to sustain the peaceful nature of the action; and (8) weak state intervention, weak leadership control, increase in propaganda, and the use of “solidarity songs” leads to violence (Forsyth 2009).

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The streets are becoming attractive spaces for collective actions because actors consider them as spaces capable of contesting the hegemony of the state in the policy space. It has been argued that street protest by the labour movement in Nigeria has potential advantages (Sha 2012). First, street protests have enormous potentials of exerting pressure on government to shift positions on issues. The increased level of public awareness of the Electoral Reforms report generated by street actions and supported by the media about the contents of the report and the consequences of the deregulation of oil industry and the government’s indifference to the demand for negotiation of a new minimum wage forced the government to start addressing these issues in some way. Second, street protests have the capacity to compel the state to grant concessions to protesters. Apart from making government shift ground, we have noted that, in some cases, actual concessions have been won by the labour movement (Sha 2012). We consider the streets as contending because its users are competing with the state for policy space. They are becoming hegemonic because they are asserting their interests, and the state is being forced to recognise its power in the policy space. Actors have used the street to protest against structural adjustment programmes and other forms of economic reforms in Africa since the 1980s, including oil subsidy removal at various times in Nigeria and Ghana in the 1980s and 1990s; increases in electricity tariffs in Nigeria in 2015; increases in school fees in South African and many Nigerian campuses; increases in the price of petroleum products in Zimbabwe in 2019; sales of forest in Uganda and Kenya; destructive uses of oil resources in Nigeria’s Niger Delta; constitutional reviews to elongate tenure of presidents or prime ministers in many African countries such as Cameroon, Algeria, Uganda, and Nigeria under Obasanjo; and corruption and bad governance, amongst others.

Boardroom Protests Administratively, the boardroom is a space reserved for meetings of top-level managers of a department or agency, committees, and so on. It is “where clients and members of the public can meet with registered representatives…to discuss investments, obtain stock quotes and place trades.” A boardroom is a space where an organisation’s board of directors meet. It is often called a conference room or meeting room. Politically, the boardroom is a space where critical decisions are formulated by either private or public sector actors. The ministries, departments or agencies, transnational corporations, international finance corporations, and the so-called development partners use the space in policymaking and implementation as well. These actors are also contending the policy space in Africa and in fact, in the world. They dominate the policy space. What takes place in a boardroom? How do the boardrooms become hegemonic in a political economy environment? The fact that the boardroom is a policymaking space, it is a highly competitive environment. This is because actors with varying interests are involved in shaping the direction of a company,

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government, or society at large. Their interests include economic, political, geographical, ethnic, religious, racial, gender, and so on. In the boardroom, some actors in the policy process have more power than others because of their economic resources which determine their political positions and their ability to influence the views presented to the public. Politicians, bureaucrats, and powerful interest groups set the agenda and decide the framework and philosophy of a policy (Brown 1985). Although boardrooms are competitive, they do not normally allow factional interests to harm the collective interest of the company, state, or the country. The board members engage in political settlement or what is commonly called elite consensus. Political settlement is “the forging of a common understanding, usually between political elites, that their best interests or beliefs are served through acquiescence to a framework for administering political power” (UK Department for International Development [DFID] 2007: 26). It is the bargaining outcomes among contending elites. It represents the balance in the distribution of power between contending social groups and social classes, on which any state is based (Khan 2010). Within boardrooms, directors formulate policies that have a remarkable influence on events at both domestic and international levels, such as allocation of resources; wars; exploitation of natural resources; wage levels; budgets of education, health, and security; and so on. The point to be made is that boardrooms are political spaces for strategic thinking on public policymaking and implementation at governmental, private, and international levels. They are contentious because they are competing for the space in policymaking; the space formally occupied by the state is shrinking because new actors are contesting the space. The boardroom has, historically, offered a hegemonic advantage for policymakers who exercise strong powers over the rest of society. I used the boardroom in this study to represent the spaces used by the state and capital. Where I use the boardroom, I simply imply the state and/or capital.

Relationship Between the Street and the Boardroom The activities and actions that take place in the boardroom and the streets are usually separated because of the location of these spaces; however, the actions that take place in these locations are motivated by responses from each other. State actions trigger street actions, while street actions push the boardrooms to act. Although street voices are not normally part of crafting public policy (e.g. budgets, plans, project development, and implementation), today the streets are forcing the state elites to open up spaces for participation. They are redefining the landscape of political economy of Africa. The political economy examines how political interests shape economic policies and how economic interests shape political decisions, policies, and programmes (DFID 2007). Political economy tells us how classes in society engage in activities that lead to changes in regimes and state institutions. We use political economy in this chapter to reflect the: (1) changes in public policy and state

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regulations; (2) changes in composition of classes and class alliances; (3) changes in regimes without changes in the character of the state; (4) changes in global policy as a result of street actions; and (5) changes in political economy academic discourse.

The Boardroom as a Hegemonic Space The field of social sciences has produced numerous theories that explain state and elite dominance of policy space and in political economy. Those theories that have enjoyed explanatory space will be employed in this discussion. The first is systems theory as propagated by David Easton. According to Easton, the political system operates as an independent administrative structure separated from the citizens. Citizens only get to know of the state decisions only when the feedback mechanism is in place or when it is reactivated. The theory suggests that, first, the political system implies a set of interaction through which values are authoritatively allocated. This means the decisions of those who are in power are binding. Second, the political system is a system of regularised persistent pattern of relationship among the people and institutions within it. Third, the political system, like any other natural system, is self-regulating, which enables it to change, correct, and adjust its processes and structures. Fourth, the political system is dynamic in a sense that it can maintain itself through the feedback mechanism. The feedback mechanism helps the system to persist, though everything associated with it may change radically. Finally, inputs categorised as demands and supports put the political system at work, while outputs through policies and decisions reject what is not accepted as feedback. For Easton, the political system is organic, consisting of various functional parts, that is, system, input, output, demand, support, and feedback (David Easton quoted in Heywood 2002). We intend to answer the questions: what happens during the “conversion process”? How do governments work in Africa countries? Is the process of governance inclusive? In Africa, government spaces are distinctly separate from ordinary citizens, but closer to the private sector. Citizens only make demands on the government and wait until government decides to make policies and programmes in their favour (in form of concessions) or against these demands. The conversion process, where input is transformed into output, is dominated by state institutions. Citizens are excluded from the policy conversion process. Theoretically, Easton’s theoretical system provides the space for the dominance of the political economy space by state institutions (see a critique by Ake 1979). In practice, many governments around the world, particularly those that have adopted the capitalist model of development are closer to the private sector than to poor citizens. The government policies and programmes are designed to favour the political and economic interest of the rich and privileged such as contractors, businessmen and women, and consultants (domestic and foreign) as shown in Fig.  7.1. In Fig.  7.2, the government is seen working together (i.e. the double arrows represent the collaboration) with transnational

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Working people (workers, peasants, students, traders etc.)

Demands

Government

Executive, National Assembly, Judiciary, bureaucrats, the Armed forces etc. Convert these demands into policy

Policies programs (usually in the interest of the private sector

Private sector (Domestic & Foreign)

Fig. 7.1  Government, private, and citizens relationship in a political system. (Adapted from Easton 1965)

Transnational companies Contractors

Consultants (local and foreign on economic and political theories)

Importer

GOVERNMENT Exporter

Top level bureaucrats

Fig. 7.2  Government and private sector relationship in a political system. (Adapted from Miliband on capitalist state, 1969)

corporations in the extractive activities, banking, construction, agriculture, manufacturing, and so on; importers and exporters; contractors; and consultants who hawk economic and political theories. The bureaucrats who are part of the government mostly milk it dry. The Marxist view of the class character of the state is apt in this context. The modern state is but a committee that manages the common affairs of the bourgeoisie: the ruling class (Marx and Engel 1977). Since government dominates the policy space, it uses the private sector to fulfil its political and economic goals. This gives room for the domination of economic thinking by bourgeois scholars (conservative neoliberal economists and development-planning scholars) from local and foreign agencies such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the London and Paris Clubs. The bureaucrats get financial gain from contract awards and

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Private sector

Regional Groups

GOVERNMENT

Ethnic groups

Religious Groups

Fig. 7.3  State capture

k­ ickbacks, most of the time without following the “due process” that they have sworn to defend and uphold. The private sector collaborators gain from overinflated contracts. The foreign businesses gain from contracts; incentives such as profit repatriation; payment of low, indecent, and dehumanising wages; weak labour laws; weak labour movement; and donations of community lands. The parliamentarians gain from unjustified, inflated salaries and allowances in addition to regular collections from ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs) that they have oversight functions over. Figure 7.3 shows a situation of state capture where government has been invaded by private and sectional interests that may be regional, ethnic, religious, domestic, or foreign (Kaufmann 2002). They are inside the government and they influence and most at times determine the direction of public policy. They compete and fight (sometimes violently) when sharing nationally owned resources. These in-house fights are between the ruling political and economic elites using the name of regions, ethnicity, and religion. The arrows in the figure show these actors appropriating government resources. Note that the working people are not seen anywhere in the arrangement. Here, government lacks autonomy (adapted from Joseph 1991).

Marxist Theory and the Dominance of the State The Marxian formulation was essentially a rigorous critique of the liberal thought on the capitalist state. The original statements made by Marx and Engel in 1848 (1977: 37–8), which have become an important reference point to neo-Marxist scholars, state that “the executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.” These formulations, as mentioned earlier, have influenced perspectives developed by later Marxist scholars such as Miliband (1975), who argued that the interrelationship amongst elements of the state system (comprising the government, state bureaucracy, military, judiciary, units of subcentral government, and

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r­ epresentative assemblies) shapes the form of the state. State power lies within these institutions, and it is through them that the elites who occupy the leading positions in each of these institutions wield power in its different manifestations. Secondly, there exists a relationship between the state and the economically dominant class; the holders of state power are, for various reasons, the agents of private economic power. Those who wield state power are an “authentic ruling class” (Miliband 1975: 50–51). The point to take away from this discourse is the dominance of the state and those of the private elites in the policy arena to the exclusion of the other poorer citizens.

The African State: History of Dominance of the Political Economy The states that were created in colonies in Africa were extensions of the states in the coloniser country that had been built on the culture of state dominance in the policy arena. The colonial indirect rule system of administration erected the local state institutions in charge of policymaking and implementation. This, therefore, led to a strong tradition of state dominance in policymaking. The civilian regimes that emerged after independence used the state to generate resources and deployed these funds for infrastructural and welfare functions. The development plans were basically a creation of the state and foreign capital which were executed with little citizen involvement (Ekekwe 1986). This is one of the critiques of the development programming and planning. The intrusion of military regimes into the political scene marked a dominance in the policy arena. This was essentially because the civil democratic structures, such as political parties and the parliament, were proscribed. The dominance of the state in the political economy of the country was made possible through the military-bureaucratic alliances (Williams 1973). This was during the period of “super-permanent secretaries” occupying vacuums left by the legislature and political executives. The voices of citizens in most cases were not heard. When they were allowed to contribute to debates on national issues, such views were not factored into the policy process. For instance, the military regime of President Ibrahim Babangida in Nigeria provided the platform for a debate on the political transition programme, which he himself jettisoned. Thus, military regimes dominated the political space for a considerable period of time, and both prevented and delayed the practice of democracy, which would have opened up the space for people’s participation. The emergence of authoritarian bureaucratic regimes kept citizens out of the policy process (Amundsen 2010: 4). The civilian regimes in the post-independent political arrangements ensured the dominance of the state in the political economy of the country with little level of inclusivity. Apart from excluding the citizens from politics, they violated their individual and group rights. The state was used during periods of economic crises to impose severe pains on citizens through reform measures. In fact, some

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policy issues in Nigeria and many parts of Africa are made and implemented by government without debates (e.g. removal of fuel subsidy). The cumulative effect of authoritarian dominance is the emergence of pressures from citizens on authoritarian regimes to withdraw from the control of state apparatus. There was a close alliance between the state and the private sector, which gave the private sector high level of dominance as an influencer of public policy. Transnational capital dominated the policy space through partnerships between government officials and business sector in state and private sector operations. At another level, domestic capital also accessed the policy space (Beckman 1982). The appearance of domestic capital in the policy field was made possible when states enacted nationalistic indigenisation policies and programmes that strengthened their economic and political bases, especially after independence from colonialism. This enabled them to acquire some capacity to penetrate and influence the policy space. The creation of platforms such as the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), and Nigerian Small and Medium Scale Industrialists (NSMSI) was a sign of the increasing organisation and strength of domestic capital in the economy and to some extent in the politics of the country (Beckman 1982). It is crucial to point out that when the state and the private sector dominate the political economy of an African country as well as the policy space, governments at different levels may distance themselves from the citizens, particularly the working poor. There is government withdrawal from the running of the economy resulting in a reduction in the size of bureaucracy and, therefore, the retrenchment of the workforce. MDAs are forced to subcontract, making them redundant, and bureaucrats are left with large funds with minimum roles to perform leading to pilfering. Service delivery to citizens is negatively affected. The implementation of neoliberal economic programmes by government and the private sector will affect the working class and the working poor. In addition, the exclusion of the poor and disadvantaged citizens in public policymaking and implementation results in bad governance, uneven access, and control and distribution of resources. Governments do not invest adequately in social and public goods like education, healthcare, social security and welfare, housing, water, and sanitation. Tax policies of the government favour the rich and extract much more from the poor. The governments are unable to raise adequate revenues to support social and public goods and development initiatives for the poor. The rich cheat governments in payment of taxes. Social policies are not constructed within equity and rights-based framework. Governments and corporate bodies violate the rights of people, who do not get free access to social and public goods, which contribute substantially to equity within the society. Finally, the neoliberal economic system which they adopt continues to suck up wealth and resources (ActionAid International 2007). From the above discussion, the policy space was once dominated by the state and capital while the people were left out. This situation triggered resistance and, therefore, made the streets politically active spaces.

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The Political Economy of Africa and the Rise in Street Actions Despite the limitations of the theoretical perspectives discussed above, they do indeed provide insights into reasons why the streets in many parts of African are being political and restless. The following discussion explains the factors that trigger as well as promote the role of citizens who use the streets as a space for contesting or promoting policy. Studies of non-inclusive growth and poverty have shown that many African economies recorded appreciable growth rates over the years. This implies that the revenues in the hands of African government steadily appreciated. It is clear that between 2010 and 2013, the growth rates were between 2 and 6 per cent. The West African subregion recorded the highest growth rates, while North Africa experienced the lowest. There are variations in the rate of growth: some appreciation in the North and southern Africa; declines in West and Central Africa; and stability in East Africa in the forecast of 2014 and 2015. There is stronger growth in countries that are endowed in oil and minerals. In 2013, there were differences in growth rates in between oil-exporting and oil-importing countries as oil exporters generated 5.9 per cent, while oil importers generated 4.3 per cent. Mineral-rich countries were better generators of growth than oil importers. The reasons for general improvements in growth rates include relatively high commodity prices. Thus, growth has put more money in the hands of governments in Africa, and these governments have celebrated this growth as a success story of their regimes. However, reports have also shown that there has not been any correlation between the relatively high economic growth rates recorded in many of these countries and the quality of life of citizens (Economic Commission of Africa [ECA] 2014). The Economic Commission of Africa has captured this scenario when they noted that: despite recent robust growth, important development challenges remain. One disappointing feature of the recent strong GDP growth rates is that they have not been accompanied by meaningful gains in job creation, raising serious concerns about the continent’s ability to reduce poverty. (UNECA 2006 quoted in ECA 2006)

One reason for the absence of the “trickle-down effect” of the high growth rates to the poor is the behaviour of the African ruling classes. The budgets and plans whether drawn up by military and civilian regimes have had highest allocations for bureaucratic administration and for the security sector while small allocations go to education, health, agriculture, and other social security services. This is why African countries have continued to experience high ­prevalence of poverty amongst its citizens. This condition is manifested in economic and political deprivations suffered by citizens. Table 7.1 shows the global state of poverty in which Africa has the largest number of its citizens being poor despite the continents’ huge quantum of

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Table 7.1  Labour market situation and outlook in Sub-Saharan Africa 2014 (%) 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Labour force participation

Total

2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

70.4

70.4 70.5 70.6

70.8 70.9 71.0 71.1 71.2 71.2

Adult male Adult female Youth Unemployed rate Total Male Female Youth Adult Employment— Total Annual growth rate Male Female Youth Adult

87.4

87.4 87.4 87.4 708

71.4

71.4 71.6 71.7

87.5 87.6 87.7 87.7 87.8 87.9

54.2 7.7 7.1 8.4 12.1 6.0 2.8

54.1 54.1 54.2 7.6 7.6 7.6 7.0 6.9 6.9 8.3 8.4 8.3 12.0 11.9 11.9 6.0 6.0 6.0 2.9 3.0 3.1

54.3 54.3 54.4 54.4 54.4 54.3 7.6 7.6 7.5 7.5 7.5 7.5 6.9 6.9 6.8 6.8 6.8 6.7 8.3 8.4 8.4 8.3 8.3 8.3 11.9 11.8 11.7 11.7 11.7 11.7 6.0 6.0 6.0 6.0 6.0 6.0 3.1 3.1 3.1 3.1 3.1 3.1

2.7 2.9 2.1 3.0

2.9 2.9 2.4 3.1

3.1 2.9 2.7 3.1

3.1 3.1 2.7 3.2

3.1 3.0 2.7 3.2

3.2 3.1 2.8 3.2

3.2 3.1 2.8 3.2

3.1 3.0 2.7 3.2

3.1 3.0 2.7 3.2

3.1 3.0 2.7 3.2

Memorandum item: GDP annual growth rate

2.6

5.6

5.5

5.2

4.8

5.7

5.7

5.6

5.5

5.7

70.9 71.0 71.1 71.2 71.2

Source: ILO, Trends econometric models, October 2013: IMF, World Economic Outlook Database, October 2013, quoted in ILO, Global Employment Trends 2014 Report, p. 69

resources and high growth rates as explained earlier. The global picture shows that countries in sub-Saharan Africa are not aggressive in fighting poverty. Most of them are fragile and have experienced conflicts in monumental proportions. That explains why they record a 40 per cent rate of poverty in 2012. Nations that are resource endowed and have managed these resources efficiently and effectively are known to have low rates of poverty such as Europe and Central Asia. The theory of state failure is appropriate in explaining the existence of “poverty in the midst of plenty” (World Bank 1996). Such deprivations are, indeed, the motivating factors for aggressive street actions by affected citizens in many cities in Africa. Another sign of state failure is its inability to scale down the rate of unemployment amongst its citizens. Unemployment and underemployment are expanding the streets and this poses potential danger for African countries. Despite the impressive growth rates, unemployment persists particularly for the continent of Africa: sub-Saharan and North Africa. Between 2001 and 2012, the change in unemployment rates in Africa was −2 per cent (ECA 2010: 169). Table 7.2 also shows that unemployment rate amongst males and females has remained stable, indicating that all efforts made by government across Africa have not been able to deal with the problem. As noted earlier, these high growth rates that Africa countries have witnessed in the past years have not

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Table 7.2  Labour market situation and outlook in sub-Saharan Africa 2014 (%) 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Labour force participation

Unemployed rate

Employment— Annual growth rate

2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Total

70.4

70.4 70.5 70.6

Adult male Adult female Youth Total Male Female Youth Adult Total

87.4

87.4 87.4 87.4 708

71.4

71.4 71.6 71.7

87.5 87.6 87.7 87.7 87.8 87.9

54.2 7.7 7.1 8.4 12.1 6.0 2.8

54.1 54.1 54.2 7.6 7.6 7.6 7.0 6.9 6.9 8.3 8.4 8.3 12.0 11.9 11.9 6.0 6.0 6.0 2.9 3.0 3.1

54.3 54.3 54.4 54.4 54.4 54.3 7.6 7.6 7.5 7.5 7.5 7.5 6.9 6.9 6.8 6.8 6.8 6.7 8.3 8.4 8.4 8.3 8.3 8.3 11.9 11.8 11.7 11.7 11.7 11.7 6.0 6.0 6.0 6.0 6.0 6.0 3.1 3.1 3.1 3.1 3.1 3.1

Male Female Youth Adult

2.7 2.9 2.1 3.0

2.9 2.9 2.4 3.1

3.1 2.9 2.7 3.1

3.1 3.1 2.7 3.2

3.1 3.0 2.7 3.2

3.2 3.1 2.8 3.2

3.2 3.1 2.8 3.2

3.1 3.0 2.7 3.2

3.1 3.0 2.7 3.2

3.1 3.0 2.7 3.2

2.6

5.6

5.5

5.2

4.8

5.7

5.7

5.6

5.5

5.7

Memorandum item: GDP annual growth rate

70.8 70.9 71.0 71.1 71.2 71.2 70.9 71.0 71.1 71.2 71.2

Source: ILO, Trends Econometric Models, October 2013: IMF, World Economic Outlook Database, October 2013 quoted in ILO, Global Employment Trends 2014 Report, p. 69

expanded employment of citizens. The worrisome aspect of this situation is that African youth remain largely unemployed or employed in vulnerable jobs. The International Labour Organization (ILO) defines youth unemployment rate as a measure of the unutilised labour supply and of the difficulty of finding work. It is calculated on the basis of the number of persons who, during the specified short reference period, were simultaneously without work; currently available for work; and seeking work as a percentage of the total labour force. The youth unemployment figures in Table 7.3 have remained in double digits. It is recognised that unemployment amongst the youth has continued to surge despite the many attempts to decisively resolve it by states around the world. The phenomenon of “youth bulge has continued to complicate matters. The youth are engaged in vulnerable employment which is often defined as voluntary part-time and under-employment” (ECA 2010: 164). The figures in Table 7.4 on unemployment in Nigerian show that the rate has been stable since the 1990s, indicating the lack of strong interventions to crack down on this development challenge. It is a development challenge because it shows that human resources are not employed in order to regenerate the economy. Across Africa, joblessness and youth unemployment can be attributed, with variations in some countries, to some of the following reasons: lack of clear articulation of the problems by political leaders and political parties; non-­

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Table 7.3  Youth unemployment as of 2010 Country

Wage Self-­ Contributing Other Total Vulnerable employment employment employment family work Full-time Under­ or employment voluntary part-time

Gallup World Poll (2009/2010) Low 24.7 43.2 Income Countries (LICs) Lower 43.0 43.2 Middle Income Countries (LMCs) Upper 73.6 23.3 Middle Income Countries (UMICs) Labour Force Survey (LFS) (2002–2007) Botswana 62.8 7.2 Republic of 20.1 55.3 Congo DR Congo 10.1 49.1 Egypt 64.9 4.1 Ethiopia 17.9 24.1 Ghana 13.3 26.2 Malawi 14.9 18.9 Mali 5.4 41.6 Nigeria 72.6 17 Rwanda 27.7 16.8 Senegal 12.3 41.7 South Africa 84.8 7.09 Tanzania 8.0 9.0 Uganda 14.0 20.9

32.1

0

100

49.9

25.4

13.8

0

100

35.1

21.9

3.1

0

100

10.3

16.1

29.9 17.8

0.1 7.5

100 100

35.7 72.5

36.3 31.0 58.0 50.4 56.0 53.0 8.5 55.5 46.0 5.9 20.2 63.6

4.2 0 0 10.2 10.3 0 1.9 0 0 2.1 62.8 16

100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100

85.4 35.1 82.1 75.6 74.9 94.6 25.5 72.3 88 11.8 28.5 84.4

Source: African Development Bank, African Economic Outlook, 2012—Promoting Youth Employment, http:// www.undp.org/content/dam/rba/docs/Reports/African%20Economic%20Outlook%202012%20En.pdf

Table 7.4  Unemployment rates in Nigeria 1995–2014

Year 1995–1999 2000–2004 2005–2009 2010–2014

Rates 7.6 7.6 7.5 7.5

Source: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS

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inclusive growth and lopsided investments patterns in the economy; trade liberalisation, which made it difficult for domestic investors to compete with cheap imports; concentration of investment and growth in the capital-intensive extractive sector, such as oil and gas; and increasing capital restructuring processes by capital for profit maximisation encourages the adoption of new work patterns which erodes job creation. Other factors that reproduce unemployment include privatisation and government downsizing; export of raw materials which implies the weak value-addition activities; deindustrialisation witnessed in closure of factories; corruption by state and private elites, preventing job creation and the destruction of already created ones; and the weak domestic private sector unable to engage in production and manufacturing (UNECA 2005; ILO quoted in Africa Capacity Development Brief 2011:4). Thus, a continent with a huge percentage of its citizens, particularly the youth, having few or no jobs to earn their livelihood, is certainly a potent danger for the polity and the nascent democracy. This danger is already manifesting itself in the massive participation of the youth in protests and street action across Africa. The unfortunate terrorist campaign across Africa is being sustained with the active recruitment of idle youth. Corruption is a phenomenon that has taken the form of primitive accumulation by state elites, politicians, and transnational corporations. It involves the conversion of state resources meant for welfare and development in private use. Corruption constitutes a dominant threat to the opportunity of millions of men, women, and children to enjoy freedom and well-being (Nussbaum). It ruins lives, denying millions mired in poverty access to education, healthcare, clean water, and other essential services that would help them escape destitution and build better lives (Transparency International 2005: 2). It “steals the future” of the nation (Transparency International 2005: 9). Most African countries according to the 2015 ranking have occupied prominently pitiable positions on the World Corruption Perception Index ranking. Table 7.5 shows that the most corrupt country on the continent of Africa is Somalia, while the least corrupt is Botswana ranking twenty-eighth globally. The message that the table conveys is that more than 50 per cent of African countries are considered as corrupt. We also argue that most countries that are corrupt perform poorly in terms of the delivery of social services as well as development. This is why we employ the Human Development Index (HDI) to understand how countries perceived to be corrupt perform in the area of human development. HDI is a composite index measuring average achievement of countries in three basic dimensions of human development—a long and healthy life, knowledge, and a decent standard of living (Transparency International 2015: 210). Table  7.6 shows that many African countries are poor performers in human development. When we compare Tables 7.5 and 7.6, it will be noted that almost all African countries with low corruption index are countries with very high human development and vice versa. We have shown the trend of corruption and the human development in Africa in 2018 to demonstrate that corruption contributes to

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Table 7.5  Global Corruption Perceptions Index 2015 (showing mostly African countries) Rank Country/territory 1 2 3 4 5 5 7 8 9 10 10 10 28 40 40 44 45 45 56 61 61 61 66 76 76 76 83 83 88 88 88 95

Denmark Finland Sweden New Zealand Netherlands Norway Switzerland Singapore Canada Germany Luxembourg United Kingdom Botswana Cape Verde Seychelles Rwanda Mauritius Namibia Ghana Lesotho Senegal South Africa Sao Tome and Principe Burkina Faso Tunisia Zambia Benin Liberia Algeria Egypt Morocco Mali

2015 Score Rank Country/territory 91 90 89 88 87 87 86 85 83 81 81 81 63 55 55 54 53 53 47 44 44 44 42 38 38 38 37 37 36 36 36 35

99 99 99 103 107 107 112 112 112 117 119 123 123 130 136 139 139 139 145 146 147 147 150 150 154 158 161 163 163 165 167

Djibouti Gabon Niger Ethiopia Côte d’Ivoire Togo Malawi Mauritania Mozambique Tanzania Sierra Leone Gambia Madagascar Cameroon Nigeria Guinea Kenya Uganda Central African Republic Republic of Congo Chad Demo Republic of Congo Burundi Zimbabwe Eritrea Guinea-Bissau Libya Angola South Sudan Sudan Somalia

2015 Score 34 34 34 33 32 32 31 31 31 30 29 28 28 27 26 25 25 25 24 23 22 22 21 21 18 17 16 15 15 12 8

Note: A country or territory’s score indicates the perceived level of public sector corruption on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). A country’s rank indicates its position relative to the other countries in the index. This year’s index includes 168 countries and territories Source: https://www.transparency.org/cpi2015

the low levels of human development because the resources meant for such development are committed to private financing of elite projects. Nigeria is a classic case of a country with vast amounts of resources but low human development basically due to corruption as shown in the comparison in Table 7.7. The correlation between corruption and human development is very visible, and this explains why the demand to terminate corruption and the sanctioning of active participants has consistently featured on the agenda of actors who engage in street and related forms of actions across Africa, including the demonstration in Nigerian against fuel subsidy removal in 2012, the increase in the

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Table 7.6  Human Development Index 2014 showing African countries HDI rank

1 2 3 4 5 6 6 8 9 9 63 64 83 94 96 106 108 110 116 126 126

136 138 139 140 143

Country

HDI value

National income (GNI) per capita

HDI rank

Very high human development Norway 0.944 64,992 Australia 0.935 42,261 Switzerland 0.930 56,431 Denmark 0.923 44,025

145 149 150 151

Netherlands 0.922 45,435 Germany 0.916 43,919 Ireland 0.916 39,568 United States 0.915 52,947 Canada 0.913 42,155 New Zealand 0.913 32,689 High human development Mauritius 0.777 17,470 Seychelles 0.772 23,300 Algeria 0.736 13,054 Libya 0.724 14,911 Tunisia 0.721 10,404 Medium human development Botswana 0.698 16,646 Egypt 0.690 10,512 Gabon 0.684 16,367 South Africa 0.666 12,122 Morocco 0.628 6850 Namibia 0.628 9418

152 153 154 155 156 161 162 163 163 166 167 168 169 170 172 173 174 175 176

Republic of Congo Equatorial Guinea Zambia Ghana Sao Tome and Principe

Country

HDI value

National income (GNI) per capita

0.591

6012

177

Low human development Kenya 0.548 Angola 0.532 Swaziland 0.531 Tanzania (United 0.521 Republic of) Nigeria 0.514 Cameroon 0.512 Madagascar 0.510 Zimbabwe 0.509 Mauritania 0.506 Lesotho 0.497 Togo 0.484 Rwanda 0.483 Uganda 0.483 Benin 0.480 Sudan 0.479 Djibouti 0.470 South Sudan 0.467 Senegal 0.466 Côte d’Ivoire 0.462 Malawi 0.445 Ethiopia 0.442 Gambia 0.441 Congo 0.433 (Democratic Republic of) Liberia 0.430

0.587

21,056

178

Guinea-Bissau

0.420

1362

0.586 0.579 0.555

3734 3852 2918

179 180 181

Mali Mozambique Sierra Leone

0.419 0.416 0.413

1583 1123 1780

182 183 184 185 186 187

Guinea Burkina Faso Burundi Chad Eritrea Central African Republic Niger

0.411 0.402 0.400 0.392 0.391 0.350

1096 1591 758 2085 1130 581

0.348

908

188

Source: http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/hdr_2015_statistical_annex.pdf

2762 6822 5542 2411 5341 2803 1328 1615 3560 3306 1228 1458 1613 1767 3809 3276 2332 2188 3171 747 1428 1507 680

805

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Table 7.7  Nigeria: Corruption perception rankings, 2005–2013 Year

Corruption Perception Index rankings

Human Development Index ranking

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

152 out of 158 150 out of 163 132 out of 147 121 out of 150 130 out of 150 134 out of 178 143 out of 182 139 0ut of 175 144 out of 175 136 out of 168

158 out of 177 159 out of 177 158 out of 177 158 out of 177 158 out of 182 142 out of 169 156 out of 179 153 out of 187 153 out of 187 152 out of 188

Source: Constructed from transparency international

electricity tariff, and demonstrations in Algeria against elected leaders. These protests confront corruption as a phenomenon that obstructs development (Theobald 1990). The politics of exclusion reflects the attitude of political elites and the ruling parties towards constitutionalism, which have been a source of worry in Africa’s march towards deepening democracy. The elites have established control over the democratic environment to the exclusion of other citizens and sometimes their opponents. This control is manifested in the mangling of the constitution to ensure tenure elongation or other political advantages. The legislature and the judiciary are often used by the ruling parties to effectively legitimise their prolonged stay in office as is the case in countries like Zimbabwe, Mali, and Senegal. Another familiar strategy is the muzzling of opposition elements to prevent them from posing as a threat to the ruling party. In conclusion, we have shown that the combined effect of primitive accumulation that takes place in the public and private sector, the failure of the state to deliver social services to citizens, and the weakening of voices championing democracy and social justice have acted as catalysts that ignited people’s reaction against regimes on the continent of Africa. It is important to show how the states in Africa response to citizens’ protest over the hegemonic domination of political economy spaces by it.

Streets and Boardrooms and Changes in Political Economy Street actions have taken place in the global North with the anti-World Trade Organization protests in Seattle in 1999, Prague in 2000, Genoa in 2001, Gothenburg in 2001, Barcelona in 2002, Evian in 2003, and others (Waterman 2003). In the global South, there have been protests against the externally imposed removal of food subsidies triggered by the IMF in the 1980s; protests against the massive and environmentally damaging dam projects sponsored by

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the World Bank; and protests against the Structural Adjustment Policies (SAPs) (Bratton and Walle 1992). The next section examines the changes in political economy of Africa as a result of the battle between the state and citizens. It will consider economic and political reforms, regime change, changes in class alliances/actions, and changes in global policy and academic discourse. Intense street actions to protest state dominance and unpopular state policies and actions have led to economic and political reforms undertaken by regimes without changes in the character of the state and social relations of production. Street protests have forced governments to introduce reforms and other palliatives measures to quieten the protesting citizens. In Nigeria, after the subsidy removal protest, the state adopted policies on Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment-Programme (SURE-P). The introduction of this programme has been interpreted as a way the state sought to strike a balance between neoliberalism and welfarism. Table 7.8 shows the issues that have led to protests by citizens either against the political class or against the state as well as the response of the state. Intense street actions had led to regime changes in countries such as Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, and Libya. These changes happened in countries where the states were relatively weak. Some of the reactions were against the ruling party, the president, or the prime minister when they tampered with the constitution to extend tenure of office, increase corruption, and increase authoritarian disposition of the ruling political class. Table 7.9 catalogues some of the cases that led to regime change in Africa. Regime constitution or regime change has not fundamentally changed the political economy of exploitation and inequality but has compelled the ruling elites to change policies, reconstitute regimes (civilian to military), or co-opt opposition elements into governmental institutions. Other regimes have exercised violence against its citizens, as in South Africa where the repressive apparatus of the state shot mine workers embarking on peaceful protest to demand increases in wages and better working conditions. Traditional street actions have often taken the form of organising along ideological, ethnic, religious, working-class, gender, and informal sector lines. In the past, the actions were basically class based, such as trade union struggles, but today there are new class alliances that are constituted (sometimes loose and other times structured) to influence the state policy, such as the Nigeria Labour-Civil Society Coalition. In some other cases, social movement organising takes the form of alliances among many civil society organisations. It has been shown that protest against the removal of oil subsidy in Nigeria actually united many classes in populist anger against the state: The protest first drew Nigerians who live hand-to-trash, scavenging through mountains of garbage to make a living. Now, long lines of cars and expensive motorcycles are parking near the demonstration that is drawing more than 10,000 people angry about life in Africa’s most populous nation.

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Table 7.8  African countries that have experienced state-driven reforms Country

Date

Nigeria

Jan 2012

Togo

Morocco

Uganda

Cause(s) of change

Government cut in fuel subsidy triggered widespread protest, which came to encompass wider frustrations with corruption, living standards, and so on. Recurrent Triggered by changes to electoral since Jun constituencies, and by dissatisfaction with 2012 decades of autocratic rule by the Gnassingbe family. Led to emergence of new political movements and delays in legislative elections. Early Protests against political system. New 2011–2013 constitution introduced and elections brought forward as a result, but little substantive change. Nevertheless, protests since mid-2011 have been very modest in scale. 2011 So-called walk-to-work protests occurred throughout 2011, triggered by the rising cost of fuel.

Malawi

2011

Protests against the economic mismanagement of the government and the increasingly autocratic rule of the then president, Bingu wa Mutharika.

Tanzania

Jan–May 2013

South Africa

Ongoing

Protests related to construction of a gas pipeline from Mtwara to Dar es Salaam, with residents wanting the gas to be used to generate electricity locally and create jobs. The past couple of years have seen a marked escalation in protests—fuelled partly by the African National Congress Youth League—as well as industrial unrest across a number of key sectors, including mining, based on never-abating demands for higher wages. Triggered by a 30 per cent rise in bread prices and rising living costs. New communication technology facilitated the organisation of protests. Large protest against hike in electricity tariff by 45 per cent. Protesters argue that government took the policy decision without consultation as specified by law and against subsisting court decision.

Mozambique Sep 2010

Nigeria

Feb 2016

Source: The Economist Intelligence Unit 2013

Type of reform Traditional focus (but with elements of regime change/ anti-authoritarian) Regime change/ anti-authoritarian

Regime change/ anti-authoritarian

Traditional focus (but with elements of regime change/ anti-authoritarian) Mixed (regime change/anti-­ authoritarian; National Solidarity Movement of Malawi (NSM)) Traditional focus

Traditional focus

Traditional focus

Mixture of authoritarianism and populism

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Table 7.9  African countries that have experienced regime change Country

Date

Cause(s) of change

Niger

Feb 2010 Large protest occurred against amendments to the constitution aiming to prolong the rule of the then president, Mamadou Tandja, and grant him wider powers. Days later, the military overthrew the president. Libya 2011 Arab Spring protests led to civil war that culminated in the ousting (and death) of Muammar Qaddafi. Tunisia Dec In early 2011, the president, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, 2010–Jan was toppled in a revolution that provided the template 2011, for the wider Arab Spring. In 2013, there was a Feb 2013 continuing element of Arab Spring-type unrest, with a pro-democracy anti-Islamist influence. Triggered by assassination of opposition leader. Madagascar Jan–Mar Triggered by public protests about the increasing 2009 authoritarianism of the president and the perception that development had benefited a small elite. Protests became violent on both sides and ultimately led to a military mutiny and the overthrow of the president, Marc Ravalomanana. Burkina Feb–Jun Triggered by soldiers mutinying over unpaid housing Faso 2011 allowances and by the death of a student in police custody. Spread to include protests over high living costs, autocratic government, and official corruption. Egypt Feb In 2011, mass protests as part of Arab Spring brought 2011, down the multi-decade-long regime of President Hosni Jun–Jul Mubarak. In mid-2013, the military intervened to 2013 remove the democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi, after protests against the perceived centralisation of power around the Muslim Brotherhood.

Type of change Regime change/ capitalist reform Regime change Regime change/ social reforms

Regime change

Regime change

Regime change/ social reforms

Source: The Economist Intelligence Unit 2013

As noted earlier, actors who occupy the streets include trade unions, labour movements, labour-civil society coalitions, professional associations (like medical doctors, students, and musicians), informal sector associations, ­ ­religious bodies, pan-ethnic associations, moderate opposition members (who became radicalised by the movement), and maximalists opposed to a ruling party or regime. Citizens use the streets as spaces where they make demands on the system and contest the global or national policies that affect them adversely. They have demanded the deglobalisation of capital, promoted “globalisation-from-­ below,” increased but fairer global integration, reform of the interstate system through debt relief, democratisation of global governance, more market access, and anti-imperialism. Some other actors demand an end to war, racism, xenophobia, discrimination against women, protection of ecology and indigenous rights, and commodification of state services. They call for mass participatory

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democracy and the increased role of the nation-state in welfare provisioning (Waterman 2003: 64). State and global agencies have been forced to re-examine their neoliberal reforms. Today, neoliberal frameworks have been reviewed and renamed as poverty reduction strategy programmes (PRSPs), heavily indebted poor countries (HIPCs) initiative, and public–private partnership (PPP). The states have been forced to demonstrate transparency in the operations. Governments promote more bailout mechanisms and general support for big businesses. Other measures adopted by the states and international agencies include fixing the “imperfect markets” and have added the term “sustainable development” to existing neoliberal frameworks through global state building (ibid.). In responding to global pressures for change in their operations, the states have responded with reforms. The World Bank agreed that: The Bank has in recent years adopted several new policies and programs geared to promoting a more holistic, participatory, and results-based approach to development and poverty reduction. This approach incorporates the notion that development must be inclusive, comprehensive, and country-owned in order to be effective and sustainable over the long term. (World Bank Development Approaches and Initiatives 2016)

In response, the World Bank has since 1999 focused attention on what it calls “consultations with the poor” in order to reduce poverty in the countries (World Bank 1999). Today, the major areas with which the World Bank is preoccupied are governance and anti-corruption strategy, comprehensive development framework, sustainable development goals, PRSPs, HIPCs, community-driven development, mainstreaming gender, empowering voices of the poor, governance and public sector reform, and participation and civic engagement (World Bank Development Approaches and Initiatives 2016). What are the universities teaching? The courses and their titles have not significantly changed, but the teaching of the paradigm and the language has fundamentally changed towards current global neoliberal thinking. This is dangerous for two reasons. First, independent thinking by scholars is obstructed, and second, the development ideologies of developing countries are influenced by global dominant influences.

Conclusions and Recommendations We have argued that both the streets and boardrooms are “contending spaces” because they compete in the policy environment. They are hegemonic because they jostle for space in the struggle for ascendency of ideas, policy, and actions. We have shown that the African States became dominant as spaces in defining political economy, but non-state actors who often use the streets become political as they contest spaces in their efforts to redefine the political economy. The gap between the streets and the boardrooms in many countries is big. It gives

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rise to situations where street voices, backed by organised action, lead to changes in state bureaucracies and political leaders, reforms in economic policies towards corporatism, or short-term populist policies. Street actions can lead to regime change, such as in Egypt, Algeria, and Libya. It must be noted that street actions do not necessarily change the class character and direction of state. How can the tension between the streets and the boardrooms as contending spaces that shape political economy in Africa be reduced or eliminated? In other words, what strategies can be put in place to reduce the political activeness of actors in the streets and make the boardrooms more conscious about inclusiveness? How can the actions of the two, henceforth, promote development? The responsibility of the scholar is not only to interpret society but to provide answers on how to change and confront its numerous challenges. We, therefore, make three recommendations towards reducing the tension between the street and the boardroom: the emergence of a “democratic developmentalist state”; respect for individuals and group rights and freedoms; communication and feedback; constitutionalism and political succession; and the university and the gap between the street and boardrooms. The responsibility of reducing the gap between the state and citizens is that of a developmentalist state (Yahaya 1989; Chang 2010), which is democratic in nature (Edigheji 2010). The democratic developmentalist state must plan, organise, and acquire the capacity to deliver services to citizens; eliminate poverty and inequality; provide social protection; and ensure the entrenchment of an inclusive governance framework. This calls for the democratisation of the state boardroom to make it citizen-friendly by being developmental. Some of the ideas of making the state citizen-friendly are already enshrined in the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended). Chapter II of this Constitution contains provisions revolving around the Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy. The implementation of these provisions will mark the commencement of a welfare state that practises inclusive governance. This state will eliminate the gulf between the streets and the boardroom, thereby scale down the driving motivations towards the citizens heading for the streets each they are dissatisfied. The rights of all in society must be respected in order not to create the space for any agitation from dissatisfied groups in society. The state and its institutions as well as class forces must respect the rights of citizens. The constitutional provisions, conventions on the rights of women, youth, ethnic and religious minorities, and so on, must be respected. Communication and feedback are crucial in order to advance understanding of the state by streets forces. The boardroom must not be exclusionary but must engage communities and groups in policy formulation, implementation, and evaluation. The street forces are manifested as either trade unions, civil society, coalitions, alliances, or social movements; they should fulfil obligations to the nation-state. In this way, they demonstrate that they have equal stakes in the state, and they want the state to deliver good governance. They must allow

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the process of negotiation to take its full course before heading to the streets. They must creatively use international conventions and domestic laws to extract concessions for their members and demand the review of obsolete laws or the laws that serve as infractions of their rights. The strategic use of lobby and other acceptable forms of politicking to get the needs of members must be skilfully acquired and used. There must be strategic thinking towards the building of political platforms such as political parties to facilitate the contest of political power and the control of the state apparatus. The respect of the formal rules guiding political and economic behaviours and transactions thereof is a hallmark for the deepening the relationship between the citizens and the state. Constitutionalism is a conscious use of the constitution and adherence to its provisions, especially in the conduct of political transactions. It is crucial. Political parties and their members must obey the constitution and associated regulations during political succession periods and never attempt to block opposition forces. This will assist greatly in securing smooth political transitions. The university is better placed to play a role in closing the gap between the boardroom and the streets by designing research on innovative approaches in inclusive governance and specialised courses for state bureaucrats and politicians on modern methods and values of operating inclusive governance. Universities should continue to teach the courses that espouse the role of the state, citizens, and their obligations to each other. They should teach political economy that will promote transparency, accountability, and commitment to development.

References ActionAid International. 2007. Economic Literacy and Budget Accountability for Governance (ELBAG) Resources Handbook. Abuja: ActionAid. Africa Capacity Development Brief. 2011. Enhancing Capacity for Youth Employment in Africa: Some Emerging Lessons. 2, No. 2 (December) Ake, Claude. 1979. Social Science as Imperialism: The Theory of Political Development. Ibadan: Ibadan University Press. Amundsen, Inge. 2010. Good Governance in Nigeria: A Study in Political Economy and Donor Support. Oslo: Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation. Beckman, Bjorn. 1982. Whose State? State and Capitalist Development in Nigeria. Review of African Political Economy 9 (23): 37. Bratton, M., and N.V. Walle. 1992. Towards Governance in Africa: Popular Demand and State Response. In Governance and Politics in Africa, ed. G.  Hyden and M. Bratton. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Brown, Micheal Barrat. 1985. Models in Political Economy. Boulder: Lynne Rienner. Chang, H. Joon. 2010. How to ‘Do’ a Developmental State: Political, Organisational and Human Resource Requirements for the Developmental State. In Constructing a Democratic Developmental State in South Africa, ed. O.  Edigheji. Cape Town: HSRC Press.

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Department for International Development. 2007. Political Economy Analysis: How to Note. A DFID Practice Paper. London: DFID dictionary.com. Retrieved on March 2, 2019. http://dictionary.reference.com/ browse/street Easton, David. 1965. A Systems Analysis of Political Life. New York: Wiley. Economic Commission for Africa. 2006. Economic Report on Africa 2006 Capital Flows and Development Financing in Africa. Addis Ababa: Economic Commission for Africa. ———. 2010. Economic Report on Africa 2010 Promoting High-Level Sustainable Growth to Reduce Unemployment in Africa. Addis Ababa: Economic Commission for Africa. ———. 2014. Economic Report on Africa 2014, Dynamic Industrial Policy in Africa. Addis Ababa: Economic Commission for Africa. Edigheji, Omano. 2010. Constructing a Democratic Developmental State in South Africa: Potentials and Challenges. Cape Town: HSRC Press. Ekekwe, E. 1986. Class and State in Nigeria. London: Longman. Forsyth, D.R. 2009. Group Dynamics. New York: Wadsworth. Heywood, Andrew. 2002. Politics. London: Palgrave Foundation. Hjelm, Titus. 2004. The Return of Street Politics? Retrieved February 12, 2019. http://blogs.helsinki.fi/streetpolitics/2014/03/24/the-return-of-street-politics/ International Labour Organisation. 2013. Global Employment Trends 2014 Report  – Risks of Jobless Recovery. Geneva: ILO. Joseph, Richard A. 1991. Democracy and Prebendal Politics in Nigeria: The Rise and Fall of the Second Republic. Ibadan: Spectrum Books. Kaufmann, Daniel. 2002. State Capture, Corruption and Mis-Governance: Empirical Findings and Unorthodox Implications for Action from Public-Private Nexus. A Paper Presented at the Harvard University, April 25, 2002. www.worldbank.org/ wbi/governace Khan, Mushtaq. 2010. Political Settlements and the Governance of Growth-Enhancing Institutions. http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/9968/1/Political_Settlements_internet.pdf Marx, K., and F. Engel. 1977. Manifesto of the Communist Party. Moscow: Progress Publishers. Miliband, Ralph. 1969. The State in Capitalist Society. London: Quartet Press. ———. 1975. The State in Capitalist Society. London: Quartet Press. Occupy Wall Street. Its Objects, Issues, and Political Meaning. Retrieved March 3, 2013. http://www.legitgov.org/Occupy-Wall-Street-Its-Objects-Issues-andPolitical-Meaning Sha, D.  Pam. 2012. The Street and Boardroom Politics: The Nigerian Labour Movement, the State and the Struggle for Democracy. In Organising for Democracy: Nigerian and Comparative Experiences, ed. B.  Bjorn and Y.Z.  Yau. Stockholm: PODSU/AKCDRAT/CRD. Theobald, Robin. 1990. Corruption. Development and Underdevelopment. Durham: Duke University Press. Transparency International. 2005. Report on the Transparency International Global Corruption Barometer 2005. Policy and Research Department Transparency International, International Secretariat, December 9, 2005. ———. 2015. Corruption Perception Index, 2015. https://www.transparency.org/ whatwedo/publication/cpi_2015

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United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. 2005. Meeting the Challenges of Unemployment and Poverty in Africa. Ethiopia, Addis Ababa: UNECA. Waterman, Peter. 2003. The Global Justice and Solidarity Movement and the World Social Forum: A Backgrounder. In WSF: Challenging Empires: Antecedents, http:// www.choike.org/documentos/wsf_s110_waterman.pdf Williams, G. 1973. Nigeria: A Political Economy. In Economy and Society, ed. G. Williams. London: Rex Collings. World Bank. 1996. Nigeria Poverty in the Midst of Plenty: The Challenge of Growth with Inclusion: A World Bank Poverty Assessment. Washington: World Bank. ———. 1999. Consultations with the Poor: Methodology Guide for the 20 Country Study for the World Development Report 2000/01. Poverty Group Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network. February 1999. World Bank Development Approaches and Initiatives. 2016. Retrieved February 17, 2016. http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/CSO/0,,con tentMDK:20109146~menuPK:220468~pagePK:220503~piPK:220476~theSit ePK:228717,00.html Yahaya, A. D. 1989. The Developmental State in the Process of Transformation: The Implication for the Political Science Discipline. First Annual Lecture. Nigerian Political Science Association.

CHAPTER 8

Contextualizing the State Structure Requisite for Africa’s Development N. Oluwafemi Mimiko

The Context Africa has for so long experimented with a variety of developmental models, without much of a positive outcome. Its more recent and overtly charitable characterization as “the world’s most exciting economic frontier”1 notwithstanding, it remains the basket case of development, with deleterious implications of truly gargantuan proportions for its people. The literature is suffused with suggestions that Africa’s unenviable location on the global development continuum is a consequence of at least one of the following factors: colonialism, a global system that is skewed against its interests, inclement geography, application of wrong policy frameworks, corruption, shortage of relevant institutions, poor leadership, and lack of will and capacity to prosecute appropriate policy measures that would seem to have engendered more positive outcomes elsewhere.2 Several of the advertised promises of globalization—shared prosperity, freer movement of production factors, a more equitable system, and so on—have become ephemeral for Africa. As a phenomenon that defines the boundaries of engagement in today’s world, globalization continues to entrench the dependent status of African nations on a global economic system, over which they have tenuous control, and which has not demonstrated a credible degree of commitment to the continent’s most critical aspirations. Indeed, what Africa has been subjected to are pervasive attempts at dismantling the last local vestiges of protection against an all-powerful globalization push. As The

N. O. Mimiko (*) Department of Political Science, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria © The Author(s) 2020 S. O. Oloruntoba, T. Falola (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of African Political Economy, Palgrave Handbooks in IPE, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38922-2_8

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Economist aptly notes, what obtains now across the continent is a state defined by fragile institutions, corruption, “and economies weakened by the fall of commodity prices ….”3 Under the circumstances, a preponderance of the literature suggests that it is imperative that Africa comes up with a developmental state, if it must make any meaningful impact of the development enterprise.4 Sundry development partners and practitioners also share the same outlook. Thus, the Meles Zenawi Foundation, at a symposium in Kigali, Rwanda, made a passionate push for an “African democratic developmental state,” to catalyze development on the African continent.5 The position is akin to that of the African Development Bank (AfDB), to which Akinwunmi Adesina, its president, gave vent thus: If you look at countries that have industrialized – China, South Korea, Singapore and many others – the role of the State was clear. One of the things that I think we need to take out of this conversation is that the State has a great role to play in Africa’s industrial revolution, particularly in terms of industrial policy, providing direction, support for infrastructure, and directing capital to particular industries.6

For Muhammed Sanusi II, erstwhile Governor of Nigeria’s Central Bank: Private sector capital is crucial for sustained economic growth but so is government’s intervention in guaranteeing business externalities like power, water and waste management, roads, housing and the legal and regulatory environment for innovation, commerce and industry.7

Yet, unequivocal as the advocacy for a developmental state for Africa is, not much progress has been made in the direction of disaggregating in specific terms, and beyond the general postulations, the nature of that state, which Africa requires for the purpose of delivering development to its much-blighted population. This theoretical and exploratory chapter seeks to fill this critical gap. Thus, while noting the nature of the diversity that characterizes the continent—in terms of history, evolution, resource outlay, geography, elite orientation, global engagement, policy specificities, and so on8—the chapter proceeds on the assumption that a credible basis for treating the nations on the continent as a collective exists. Commonalities are actually plenteous “in the environment within which the task of development is undertaken, the nature of policy choices, and consequentially, the outcomes thereof, in observable developmental terms.”9 This provides the platform for the development of a general template on the specifics of the state structure requisite for Africa’s development. The template does not only make possible an across-the-board application to African countries but also serves as a framework for tracking the progress made by each one of the 55 states in relation to delivery on the development agenda. The peer review mechanism under the aegis of the African Union

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(AU), if properly calibrated, is a veritable platform for effectuating good ­governance. This work enhances the prospects of the AU initiative. It also represents a standard schema by which the commitment of each African country to the development agenda can be measured, making it a valuable instrument for international business, funders, and development partners. Beyond the general pattern of advancement of knowledge, especially indigenous knowledge, therefore, this study comes with practical policy measures that are consequential for the end state of development, which is so desirable, yet elusive in Africa. The nature of the inquiry that the chapter undertakes makes the adoption of the political economy framework of analysis so compelling. This speaks to the interaction of political and economic variables in analysis. It is “a broad concept that looks for economic motives behind political and social actions and is concerned about ‘the interconnection between economic and political structures in social formations’.”10 Taking off from Marxism, political economy, in its more radical dimension, compels the integration of economic and meta-­ economic forces as a basis for constructing and appreciating the true nature of social phenomena, including the nature of power relations pertaining to every social formation.11 The chapter is in five parts. Following this contextual mapping is a discussion of the changing pattern of the role of the state in economic development. This is followed by an interrogation of the capitalist developmental state (CDS) model, a construction of the critical elements by which such a state needs to be defined in the African context, an interrogation of specific policy frameworks, and review of the externalities derivable from the operations of a CDS. The final part is the conclusion.

Changing Pattern of the Role of the State in Economic Development Discourse on the appropriate role of the state in economic development, especially of newer social formations, has remained in a state of flux, changing with trends and patterns in the global economic system, that is, the Western capitalist economic system writ large. This pattern can be situated in the evolution of neo-classicism, which in essence, to all intents and purposes, is but a strident critic of state involvement with economic development processes. It is a theory wholly dedicated to rolling back the state from the economy of nations. It is driven by the assumptions that state intervention fundamentally distorts rather than benefits an economy, that market mechanisms facilitate efficient allocation of productive resources,12 and that free trade is socially beneficial, that is, it adds value to all partakers therein. Neo-classicism has its roots in classical economics, as espoused by Adam Smith in his magnum opus, The Wealth of Nations. His work was informed by an observation of the pattern of commercial engagements and interactions

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among individuals, and the newly emergent political communities of the Middle Ages. His curiosity about how production and exchange could be thriving even in the absence of a formalized system of control, or “some kind of guiding hand,”13 led him to the concept of an invisible hand, which constitutes the basis of what came to be known as classical economics. Smith’s thesis is that (Every individual) neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it … by directing (his) industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention … By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more efficiently than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.14

In other words, human beings, in exercise of their freedom, and fixation on rivalry, and desire for gain, are “led by an invisible hand to promote an end, which was no part of (their) intention,” and, by so doing, they “inadvertently act(s) on behalf of the wider interest of society.”15 Smith, thus, canvassed the superiority of the “invisible hand” over state involvement in commerce. His emphasis was on a laisse faire la nature, roughly translated as “leave nature (business) alone” approach, for the market to undertake unfettered direction of economic and commercial engagements in society.16 The basic assumption underlying this is that the market has an inherent capability for just distribution of income and most efficient use of economic resources. The framework is predicated upon a set of natural laws to determine value and prices, including those of factors of production. Specifically, Smith demonstrated the capacity of market mechanism to provide the goods needed by the population; generate fair prices that would shape the pattern of economic interactions; provide the basis for fair incomes; and generally stimulate economic growth, through “saving and opportunity for profit,” on the one hand, and, efficiency of a production system driven by division of labor, on the other.17 Under classical economics, therefore, market mechanism is the undisputed ideal allocator of productive resources, for optimal economic performance—the end-state being a perfectly competitive economy in equilibrium.18 The most enduring counterforce to Smith’s highly constricted space for the state in economic processes was John Maynard Keynes,19 who argued that the state has a duty to not only guide the market, which is far from perfect anyway, but also lead investment, especially in situations and times of economic downturn. While not discounting the place of market mechanism, therefore, it being necessary for emplacing “a framework of laws and regulations” to protect consumers from being unfairly treated,20 Keynes argued that it “needed to be nudged to work best.”21 His strident opposition to the underlying assumptions

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and philosophy of classical economics found expression in, and was further propelled by, the Great Depression in the early twentieth century and World War II.  These events invariably served to confer legitimacy on Keynesian thoughts, in which key elements are that rather than stepping back from the economy, as recommended by Smith, governments should commit to stimulus spending, that is, spend their way out of recession.22 This made the existence of a strong state, imbued with a vanguard role in the development enterprise, central to Keynesian theory. It, indeed, provided the theoretical basis for policy actions in most Western capitals in the post–World War II period. These two epochal events—the Great Depression and World War II—thus served to cast aside the laissez faire thoughts of the classical economists, as Western governments undertook massive investments directed at driving the global economy away from the Depression. US President F.D. Roosevelt’s New Deal was a critical inspiration in this regard. Governments also embarked upon sundry public sector-led initiatives and investments needed to rebuild the War-ravaged economies of Europe, with the Marshall Plan in the lead. The ensuing pattern of state dominance of economic processes remained in place up until the early 1970s. The period of the 1970s was marked by stagnation and recession in the global (Western) economy, partly consequent upon the Arab oil crisis. Once again, the stagnation brought neo-classicism back in. As an economic doctrine, neo-classicism was propelled by the Public Choice theory, itself an outcrop of the rationality and rational expectations thoughts, which had thrived in the 1960s through the 1970s.23 It “depicts government as a group of self-seeking individuals, who maximize their own interests and extract money without regard to the social good (‘rent-seeking’).”24 Such could, therefore, not be relied upon as drivers of economic progress. Being essentially a revival and repackaging of the basic outline of Smith’s distrust for state involvement in economics and commerce, and absolute trust in the self-regulating propensity of market, this school earned the name “neo-classical economists.” Its more recent dimension is dominated by monetarism, deriving from the thoughts of Milton Friedman,25 and what The Economist referred to as the Chicago “XNobel Prize Prize (in Economics) savages.”26 These are economists who, according to Amsden, are propelled by an abiding faith in market mechanism, not necessarily the validity of their assumptions.27 The central objective of neo-classical economics consists in “formulating rules for the optimal regime for managing capitalist enterprises under free competition.”28 Its overriding deliverable is a holistic program of the rollback of the state (“de-statisation”); enthronement of market mechanism and the private sector; and wholesale liberalization of trade. Confidence in the mutually beneficial orientation of free trade thus provides the critical third leg of what is effectively a tripod—Adam Smith’s perception on the inherently redeeming value of market mechanism29 and David Riccardo’s theory of comparative advantage being the other two.30

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The ascension of neo-classicism in the political arena was boosted by the emergence of Thatcherism and Reaganomics in Britain and the United States, respectively, and the systematic and sustained onslaught on the state as an agency for development, which both represented. The twin philosophies aligned with mainstream thoughts in the Bretton Woods aid agencies, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund (IMF), giving rise to the Washington Consensus on the imperative of undercutting the state and enthronement of market mechanism, and free trade. The overarching prescriptions of monetarism, therefore, remain: superiority of competition over monopoly, of private over public economy, market-determined over-administered prices, choice and freedom over regulation, decentralized decision-making over hierarchy, integration into market over autarchy, and individual personal responsibility over paternalism.31 In Africa, monetarism was packaged by the IMF as a structural adjustment program (SAP), which was but a program of coordinated attack on the developmental state. It was predicated upon trade liberalization, classification of parastatals, de-subsidization, currency devaluation, and a host of other measures designed to constrict the state. Virtually, all countries on the continent had by the mid-1980s emplaced one variant or the other of SAP, all under the careful guidance of the IMF. While minor differentiations in economic performance terms were noticeable across Africa, following years of rigorous implementation of this economic template, the dominant tenor of its outcome on the continent was negative.32 The full dimensions of the distortion of the African economy by structural adjustment have been adequately attended to in the literature. It is indicative of a model that failed to lead the continent away from the morass of crises and poverty, to economic expansion and social development. Cortes and Flores put this development outcome succinctly thus: Neoliberalism (neither) put an end to poverty nor solved the problems that its advocates promised. Sustainable high growth was not achieved, a more coherent production system was not established, nor was there social progress. On the contrary, economic growth disappeared in an early phase (the “lost decade”) and then became stunted; production systems were limited by finances, they looked outward and were dismantled, causing deindustrialization and the destruction of the agricultural economy. In addition, underemployment, unreliability, migration and poverty aggressively increased, further deepening the inequalities that have characterized (African) societies throughout history.33

Spirited efforts were made across Africa by the 1990s to do away with the more formal structures of SAP—a process buoyed up by the relative ideological clarity of the continent’s key development agency, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). Nevertheless, the basic outline of the adjustment program’s neoliberal prescription has survived on the continent. More than anything else, the lack of embeddedness of the African state has guaranteed the sustained operation of neoliberalism, albeit in a manner devoid of the

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coherence requisite for any remarkable positive externality, given the intrusive nature of the largely disorientated state in this scheme of things.

Evolution of the State in Africa and East Asia The natural pattern of evolution of the African state, in a manner akin to what was obtained in several other regions, was violently disrupted by external aggression manifesting as “free trade,” slave trade, and colonialism, covering many centuries.34 What emerged in Africa at the end of this process, that is, political independence, was a distorted state system that lacked the capacity, orientation, soul, commitment, and vision for the type of massive economic transformation that could attenuate poverty and fulfill the promise of independence. What Africa got instead was a state which, to all intents and purposes, equated the quintessential exactor of the social production of an essentially conquered people. It was a state that continued with the role it had played for years, as it evolved, essentially as an oppressive and bandit mechanism, but now in the service of a succession of local comprador elites. The latter had been carefully nurtured, and entrenched by colonialism when it had become imperative for formal colonization to end. Thus, given its pattern of evolution, and the ends to which it was directed, this peculiar state could not have been but corrupt, visionless, and bereft of any recognizable capability to deliver on the serious agenda of development. Given the very weak productive capacity of the African economy, largely a consequence of this violent disruption, and subsequent despoilment through foreign intrusion, it was evident that the neo-classical model, when it debuted on the continent as structural adjustment, could not have done better than it did. It further weakened the African state and made it unable to resist newer patterns of domination by a more assured, better resourced, and historically privileged global capitalist economic system. Side by side, the African experience was East Asia’s. This is a region, which for a bouquet of factors, including for several of the nations the escape from colonialism—at least in its less benign, more brutal form35—was able to effectively resist untrammeled drive toward neo-classicism. There was also the factor of a geo-strategic configuration that was quite tolerant of local economic growth initiatives and sundry other institutional specificities, which further helped this evolutionary process. Thus, East Asia opted for an economic modernization agenda that was unequivocally state-directed, and this, by a state less compromised by historical contradictions, and thus more effective than its African counterpart vis-à-vis the development enterprise. Specifically, three broad waves of development are identifiable, for analytical purposes, in East Asia from the end of World War II. The first was represented by Japan, which rose in a most dramatic manner from the devastation of the War, and had assumed by the late 1960s the status of the second largest economy in the world. It paraded an industrial productive capacity that readily conferred on it the status of an economic superpower. This was a state-directed,

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export-led industrialization drive that leveraged on the country’s emergent special relationship with the United States, and thrived on the legendary sophistication and strong work ethic in the country. The Japanese model was soon to become an inspiration of development for virtually all other countries in the region. The second wave was represented by Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, and China—all of which began to make noticeable economic impact at about the same period. The process started just after World War II for Hong Kong; with the Kuomintang takeover of power in Taiwan in 1949; the emergence of the Park Chung Hee leadership in South Korea in 1961; and the break away from Malaysia by Singapore in 1965. In China, the era of economic transformation commenced with the market-friendly, export-led economic reform process associated with the ascension to power of Deng Xiaoping in 1978. The third wave of development is better associated with, among others, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. A fourth model of state-led development is recognizable in “communist” North Korea, distinguished by its autarchic, and militarist orientation—in direct contradistinction to the capitalist developmental state (CDS) model, which has remained dominant in the region. It is to be noted that the African state too is not necessarily a newcomer into the arena of development. As a matter of fact, it had always been a key player here. At the period prior to the implantation of neoliberal thoughts on the continent, where it soon became the dominant logic, state leadership of the economy did not, however, produce a similar result as in East Asia. This was consequent upon the differing character of the state in each of the regions and the different orientation that each came up with. Whereas the Asian state was developmental in nature, and thus propelled massive economic expansion, its African counterpart was a major debilitating factor for development, with its effectiveness wholly compromised by its character, and peculiar pattern of intervention in the economic development process. The work of Carbonnier et  al. is broadly representative of the tendency observable in the literature to take for granted the critical ways in which the East Asian developmental state differs from its absolutist, but predatory, counterpart in Africa.36 Researching population trends in the two regions, the level of engagement with the global economic system, and three governance indicators—budgetary and financial management, public administration, and the rule of law and property rights—among others, they concluded that no “remarkable differences (exist) between the Asian and African countries ….” This perspective is weak to the extent that size of population is taken by the researchers, in a neutral manner, without attention to the quality of such populations, including their knowledge base, skill set, demographics, work ethic, and so on, all of which have profound implications for economic development outcomes. Engagement with the global economy is measured strictly in terms of “total imports and exports of goods, and services as a share of GDP,” with-

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out attention to the structure of engagement—on what terms, with what array of goods and services, and with which production framework. According to Carbonnier et al.,37 “An analysis of the aggregate value of imports and exports as a percentage of GDP leads us to conclude that there is no systematic gap between the two regions,” in terms of outward orientation and integration into the world economy. In this, the authors failed to take cognizance of finer nuances vis-à-vis items of export and import, as to whether Africa remained essentially a shipper of primary products to the world economy, while East Asia has consistently upgraded the quality and range of its industrial exports. It would be truly remarkable if not much difference exists between African countries and their East Asian counterparts on quality of financial management, public administration, commitment to rule of law, and property rights. The truth, however, is that there is a world of a difference, which the reductionist framework adopted by Carbonnier et al. does not seem to account for.38 The common thread that runs through virtually all studies of the African condition is the generally low quality of governance on the continent. It is such that makes it practically impossible for the state, which it embodies, to successfully catalyze rapid economic growth. This provides context and validity for Reynolds’ thesis that “governments administrative competence is the single most important factor explaining the difference in growth among many developing countries.”39 To be sure, Carbonnier et  al. recognize that “South East Asian countries have made greater progress than sub-Saharan countries in modernizing their agricultural sector, thereby substantially increasing productivity per hectare.” They also found out that adult illiteracy was generally higher in Africa than East Asia. These are critical indicators that feed into the overall structure of state and society, and what these are capable of accomplishing in economic growth and development terms. They are consequential and can, therefore, not be lightly treated in a credible comparative study. Attempts have been made elsewhere to tease out these differentials in the two institutions (states) operating in the two different contexts.40 Suffice here, therefore, to note that any suggestion that East Asia, with its record of a more desirable development outcome, is the “international demonstration effect” of success of neo-classicism, is just not valid. On the contrary, what the experience of East Asia demonstrated is the efficacy of a strong, visionary, and autonomous developmental state, possessing in good measure that “administrative competence” by which the critical difference is made. This perspective does not in any way detract from the very strong support that East Asia derived from an international system that was driven by strategic considerations to provide the same. Thus, for instance, South Korea, widely regarded as the most successful of these developmental experimentations, has had US presence on its territory from World War II, and especially after the Korean War. This provided the country with a strategic covering that engendered the peaceful and stable environment, which ensured that all focus remained on the economic development agenda. In addition, the Koreans

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received some US$60 billion “in aid and loans” from Washington in the period from 1946 to 1978—“close to the amount it spent on the entire continent of Africa during the same period.”41 The US$57 billion facility that South Korea got in the wake of the financial crisis that swept over the region in 1997 was up until then the highest the IMF had extended to any country since its creation.42 What these imply is that economic expansion in East Asia is far from being mono-causal. Yet, the overarching role of the state in this process cannot be underestimated. When all of these are juxtaposed against the shrinking space for Africa in the current international system, itself a product of a multiplicity of factors, including the end of the Cold War and the sharp reduction in the strategic importance of the continent,43 we begin to confront two quite different contexts within which the state emerged and operated in East Asia and Africa. The level of cohesion that prevailed in each East Asian country, when the development enterprise started in earnest, was much higher than what Africa presented. While the former ensured that the state, which was virtually coterminous with the nation, was able to focus pointedly on development in East Asia, managing the conflicts consequent upon differing identities—inevitable in a nation-building process—was an avoidable distraction for the African state. Thus, the cultural milieu in which the East Asian state emerged and took on a developmental stance was quite different from what was obtained in Africa. The intense nature of the Confucian culture, for instance, and its other core elements like obedience to constituted authority, leadership by example rather than by precepts, and so on, were basically supportive of a strong, developmental state. They facilitated the hegemonic orientation without which the vanguard role of the state in the economy would not have been possible. The situation was not exactly the same in Africa. Of course, the type of colonial disruption that Africa witnessed, either in its totality or in its brutality, was largely avoided in much of East Asia. What this attempt at contextualizing the emergence of state structures, their character, and undertakings in East Asia and Africa suggests is that while the former’s experience provides a very good study on how impactful a developmental state could be in newer social formations, as you have them in Africa, a replication of East Asia on the continent may neither be possible nor be appropriate. Rather, taking off from the pedestal that a truly developmental state is what Africa requires to change the narrative of its development, or lack of it, as the case may be, this study advances the argument for an adaptation, or emulation, of the East Asian experience. One underlying fact of the analysis, however, is that the basic orientation of the East Asian state in capitalism is so fundamental that it cannot but be mainstreamed. Indeed, it is this unpretentious commitment to capitalist development that informs the characterization of the model, in much of the region, and in the literature too, as a capitalist developmental state (CDS).

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The Capitalist Developmental State A developmental state is one “which envisions the state as both committed to development and as playing a leading role in charting its course.”44 It parades “the seamless web of political, bureaucratic and moneyed influences that structures economic life” in a country.45 For Johnson, CDS “rests on genuine private ownership of property but indirect state control of economic decisions.”46 It is a state-guided, goal-oriented economic orientation that is, nevertheless, committed to free enterprise, private ownership of property, and the market.47 It is an economic orientation in which there is government control of investment decisions, in the context of private ownership of the means of production.48 Standing on the East Asian pedestal, it is possible to distill the core elements of a developmental state that is deemed necessary for propelling the agenda of development on the African continent, in an increasingly dynamic global context anchored, as it were, by a broad neoliberal outlook. Capitalist Orientation As its name suggests, CDS is of necessity capitalist in orientation. As noted by Johnson,49 CDS may be more efficient than the communist system, as has been demonstrated in East Asia, but it may not be as efficient as “the ideal market economy with perfect competition.” This aligns with the preponderance of opinion in the literature, and among development practitioners, that its more evident limitations notwithstanding, the capitalist system tends to be much more productive than any other. This fact is also not lost on Marx.50 Its primary driving force is private ownership of the means of production, within which the profit motive makes sense. For every one of the thriving economies of East Asia, no illusion was exercised as to the ideological underpinning of the mode of transition to economic growth and, ultimately, development. The Chinese “socialist market economy,” a conceptual contradiction in terms, as it were, is not more than an attempt to preserve some of the memories of a dying system. It is a system, which may be superior to capitalism in its distributive capacity, but was, nevertheless, found not suited for the rapid economic expansion that the more than one billion population of China needed. It is significant that the transition to market economy since 1978 consistently posted a double-digit growth rate that propelled the Chinese economy to the position of the second largest in the world within 30 years. It also became the basis of moving hundreds of millions of people off poverty in a remarkably short period of time. In the five years of incumbent Xi Jin Ping’s government, for instance, China moved some 64 million of its citizens out of poverty.51 The focus of the CDS model, therefore, is unmistakably on engendering capitalist development, but given that the newer social formations are what Alice Amsden52 would refer to as “late industrializers,” this is calibrated as a process that had to be carefully guided by a state that cannot afford to be dormant.

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Market Infallibility A critical element in CDS is its disputation of the thesis on infallibility of the market, which the neo-classical school had long taken for granted. Coming from the backdrop of this assumption, the CDS model positions the state as a standing force for the correction of market failures, through appropriate interventions in the economic development process. Thus, for instance, when it became necessary for South Korea in 1973 to shift the focus of industrial development from consumables to heavy and chemical industrialization (HCI), the Korean state did not wait on the market to lead investment in that direction. It knew that this was not going to happen, given that the country’s comparative advantage had its basis only in its cheap industrial labor, not adequate to drive the new industrialization agenda. Rather, it took up the challenge, through a string of incentives and practical policy measures, to force investible funds into the HCI sector. As Mimiko aptly noted about the targeted sectors: By 1996, Korea had become the sixth largest producer of crude steel products and motor vehicles, … second largest shipbuilding nation, and the third biggest manufacturer of electronics products in the world. Its three semi-conductor makers  – Samsung, Hyundai, and Lucky-Goldstar (LG)  – ranked sixth, tenth, and sixteenth largest makers of electronics chips respectively in the world in 1995.53

All across East Asia, subsidy is administered without regard to the neo-classical tenet that sees such as evidence of distortion. Sundry incentives were leveraged upon as tools for achieving state-determined industrial objectives. In every instance, from country to country, state intervention is substantive, sustained, and consequential, not merely episodic and ineffectual. Strong State The totality of the CDS runs on the fulcrum of a strong state that has hegemony, capacity, and autonomy. It would therefore mean that in order to be effective, a state-led development enterprise must be preceded by the existence of a very strong state with credible institutions, including a firm and unimpeachable law and order regime. The latter, in particular, is needed as catalyst and basis of confidence for investment, especially foreign direct investment (FDI). The state must exist substantively, as an agglomeration of institutional structures, and processes through which authoritative allocation of values and resources is undertaken.54 To be able to do this, the state must be the dominant force in society, hegemonic, and operate above the social fray. It must also possess, in good measure, the ability to get the things it seeks to do, done. Where there are other social forces primed enough to give credible challenge to the state, either in terms of the degree of loyalty they claim, from segments, or all of the population; use of credible, even if illegitimate force; and ability to exist outside of the state system, that is, without regard to the latter’s existence, the

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state becomes not just compromised, but greatly weakened. It gets distracted in its permanent contention with such social forces over which it is not able to prevail. This explains why the developmental state that proved so successful in East Asia started out as hard authoritarian. Again, this is consistent with the Confucian culture, where the emphasis is on harmony, collective outlook, respect for leadership, and leadership by example rather than by precepts, among others. It is significant that not all of these elements, which, arguably, account for the emergence of, and success of, the strong developmental state, and its particularly authoritarian streak in the East Asian context are present in Africa. The issue, however, is that the developmental state, in the current epoch, need not be authoritarian to be effective. Indeed, as demonstrated presently, commitment to democratic ideals may be but the very basis of claiming the type of legitimacy locally, and in the global system, without which the interventionist state may not even be able to survive. Democratic Orientation There is nothing in the experience of the East Asian states to suggest that the CDS must necessarily be democratic in orientation. Indeed, what played out in most of the more successful ones is evidence of hard authoritarianism in which little or no regard is paid to human rights, often advertised as the very bedrock of the liberal economic outlook popular in Western societies. Commitment to a peculiarly Asian conception of human rights as equating civic responsibility rather than civic right is unmistakable in the region.55 Even so, the criticality of democracy as a factor in development paradigm in the context of extant globalization cannot be discountenanced, for a number of reasons. To the extent that the mass participation in governance processes, which it portends, is predicated on the inner yearning of man to be free and involved in social organization, democracy constitutes the bedrock of legitimacy. It is a veritable basis for the sustenance of the desirable strong state. It remains, for all times, a powerful instrument of mass mobilization, with political parties serving as the critical platform. Democracy also provides a basis for managing social fractures and fault lines, in a structured manner, that authoritarianism does not possess. By so doing, democracy proves itself more attuned to effective governance of plural societies, thereby guaranteeing systemic stability—a critical counterpoise to authoritarianism’s inherently unstable outlook. The outlet to legitimate access to power, which democracy guarantees, also makes for social stability. So does the provision it makes for ordered and predictable change of government and policies, and institutionalization of a regime of rule of law, which makes it inherently more attractive for foreign investment. Democracy thus provides the basis for international respectability that facilitates support from abroad, in an increasingly networked global system, for goals of economic development.

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Above all, democratic states tend not to fight each other, as depicted in the Democratic Peace Theory. The system of government, by so doing, provides the peaceful environment conducive to development, taking out the distraction associated with disproportionate investment in military buildup in the context of regional tension, and possible warfare. It thereby fulfills a key condition in the nature of the state Africa requires for effective takeoff with the development enterprise. It is, therefore, imperative that the African CDS be democratic, and this against the backdrop of Winston Churchill’s valid averment that “Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”56 To entrench democracy, a number of measures are requisite, recommended as they were, by the experience of African states on the democratic trajectory thus far. The need for a stable constitution that is not subject to the whims and caprices of incumbent presidents cannot be overemphasized. This is a key element in the drive toward democratic consolidation (irreversibility), which is the ultimate end-state of democratization.57 In addition, the desirable democratic system must provide firm guarantees for constitutional term limits (fixed tenures) for the office of head of government. While elections alone do not make democracy, there must be the sanctity of the electoral process, itself being the prevailing platform for canalizing the principle of mass participation in governance after popular democracy transited to representative democracy. This system must be predicated upon inclusivity, and given that all social formations in the age of globalization have come to assume the character of homogeneity, federalism stands out as the preferred constitutional format. It alone provides for the possibility of autochthonous development by recognizable sub-national entities in the context of “unity in diversity.” Any and all attempts to graft a unitary form of government, by whatever name called, upon a basically plural social formation, that all countries have invariably become, is inherently disruptive and unstable, and has no place in the CDS.  A viable democratic system must also come with credible affirmative action provisions for critical but often disadvantaged groups— women, youth, people with disabilities, and so on. To the extent that it is possible, constitutional provisions must be creatively made in the management of security apparatuses, including location of critical installations and allocation of command positions, all of which must be spread out in such a way as to reflect what the Nigerian 1999 Constitution (as amended), Section 14(3), refers to as “the federal character.” There must be the mainstreaming of diversity; provision for broad representation in cabinet; and a commitment to the principle of proportional representation to ensure that no credible political formation that is broad based enough is shut out of the governmental process. Above all, such a state must institutionalize commitment to, and prioritization of, human capital development, with specified percentages of national revenue guaranteed for the sector. A key element in this is to make such provisions on universal education and h ­ ealth-­care

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coverage part of the “fundamental objectives and directive principles of state policy,”58 and probably justiciable too. Currently, African states are still far from the foregoing democratic prescriptions. Indeed, what is evident, as pointed out by The Economist,59 is that “African democracy has stalled – or even gone into reverse.” As it argues: Too often, it is an illiberal sort of pseudo-democracy in which the incumbent demonizes the opposition, exploits the power of the state to stack the electoral contest in (their) favor and removes constraints on (their) power.60

It is evident that such reality of reversal that democracy suffers from, on the African continent, is not limited to the same. A similar trend is unfolding in virtually all Western societies today, with this system of governance constantly buffeted by the darker realities of emergent populism, and mass angst against widening income inequality, which democracy is proving incapable of addressing. Even so, this does not detract from the advocacy for a global compact of sort on defense of democratic tenets in Africa, against which leaders with the vilest authoritarian streak would not be able to push back. Militarist Pretentions An African state that must be developmental in the prevailing context must not be reckless in its foreign policy, such as to get bogged down in unnecessary altercation, and possibly war too, with its neighbors. Such a state should ordinarily not give a space to any militaristic pretentions, orientation, or claims, which makes massive and rapid but costly development of a huge weaponry system inevitable. This is not to deny the possibility of a militaristic focus, serving as a propellant of national economic growth, as has been historically demonstrated. Rather, it is to emphasize the debilitating externalities of war, including its inherently destabilizing effects, and general unpredictability. A state that must be completely sold out to economic expansion and development, therefore, would do well to avoid the largely unpredictable nature of warfare, which as demonstrated by Stoessinger is often a product of miscalculation on the part of leaders’ wont to act precipitately.61 The idea is for the entire state apparatus to be completely focused on the growth and development agenda, on a sustained basis. Professionalized Bureaucracy and Military To be effective, a developmental state must be imbued with a highly professional bureaucracy and professionalized military. The hallmark of such are good training, meritocracy, and autonomy. Autonomy here, expresses “the degree of independence of the key … policy makers (senior bureaucrats and chief executives and their advisors) from societal and political forces …,”62 and the forms of pressures they put to bear on such critical players and processes,

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both overtly and otherwise. A bureaucracy that does not possess and hold these values as sacrosanct cannot deliver on the task of development. In the same manner, the military organization and the entire apparatuses of coercion must be fully professionalized and stick to their mandate, which must be clearly defined, such that their operations would not be susceptible to partisan political pressures. Nimble State A developmental state must be constructed on very strong constitutional footing, not readily impeachable by transient custodians of state power. Yet, it must be nimble enough to take advantage of opportunities that present from time to time in the global system. Opportunities attendant upon frameworks like the US African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), for instance, must be fully leveraged upon. The state must also be flexible enough to creatively manage constraints arising from global networking regimes like the World Trade Organization (WTO). All of these and more would require technical competence to get done. This is an additional reason why a developmental state, to be fully impactful, must privilege meritocracy over cronyism, especially in the leadership recruitment process. In the East Asian context, the period of economic transition was marked by strategic contestation by the two ideological power blocs that had emerged by World War II.  Countries like Taiwan and South Korea took maximum advantage of this, often playing the communism card, to leverage the Western support needed to propel their economies into development.63 Distributive Mechanism The point had been made that capitalism has over the years proven itself more capable of generating greater economic output than socialism. Its record vis-à-­ vis distribution of products of collective exertions is, however, not so good. At any event, this is the overriding basis of the scientificity of Marx’s historical materialism, and the inevitability of social change, consequent upon the immerseration of the proletariat. CDS is demonstrably capitalist in orientation, yet, critical to the sustenance of a developmental state, which it espouses, is an effective distributive mechanism, good enough to smoothen social cleavages that may constantly threaten state survival. If this is not in place, the classical case of growth not translating into development (growth without development), with its attendant disruptive proclivities, cannot be ruled out. Guaranteeing the very survival of the state, and earning the legitimacy requisite for such, must therefore compel a distributive order that resists the temptation to leave substantial segments of the population behind, or allow a level of inequality in income that is inherently distortive of social harmony.

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Inclusivity The whole idea of inclusivity is to ensure that the state is all-encompassing, and avoids, as a matter of policy, the nurturing of extractive political and economic institutions. Inspired by the work of Acemoglu and Robinson,64 who underscore the primacy of such institutions in Africa’s inability to do away with poverty, Mimiko had argued that such institutions thrive on exclusion of a preponderance of the population from the economic and political processes of a nation; and are directed at ripping the gains of whatever economic engagements they tolerate off the hands of those involved therewith. In addition, extractive political institutions limit political power, and access to the privileges they confer, to a very limited circle of people united by blood, or ideology, or one or more of the several socially constructed identities. Extractive political and economic institutions reinforce each other; and reproduce poverty and alienation rather than prosperity and inclusiveness.65

Under such a system, the mass of the people is set up as mere tools for exploitation in the hands of a governing elite committed to rent seeking, and they would rather hijack or capture the state if things are left unregulated.66

Toward an Africa Inc.: Context, Texture, and Outcome of Intervention A number of conclusions are inevitable from the foregoing. The first is that under CDS, market mechanism is not deemed to be infallible. Indeed, the whole conception of a CDS centers around the state being primed to intervene, as often as necessary, to correct inevitable market distortions. It is a state that is always willing to take economic decisions that may be at variance with theoretical prescriptions on neo-classicism, as long as such are in the interest of the overall economic objective. Examples of such unconventional measures would include wage freezes or cuts; emasculation of imports; nationalization of finance; subsidization of export products; elaborate incentive administration; currency devaluation; and aggressive pursuit of export market opportunities. Second, the developmental state exercises the discretion to take economic decisions that cannot necessarily be justified on the basis of efficiency. For example, the HCI program in South Korea was motivated more by political and strategic rather than economic considerations. Third, a developmental state deploys noneconomic incentives to deliver higher productivity. The National Export Day festival and monthly Export Promotion Council meetings, for instance, were created and institutionalized in the rapid economic growth years in Seoul, under General Park, for a purpose like this. Most importantly, a developmental state does not shy away from direct involvement in production, where such becomes necessary. At least four such scenarios can be painted. First is when market mechanism is reluctant to lead investment into particular sectors, which may be nonviable, but expedient,

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probably for strategic considerations. Second, direct state investment in production takes place where the economy is confronted with the reality of a weak and only modestly resourced private sector. Third, direct state investment occurs when the imperative of stimulus spending becomes compelling, and, fourth, in the context of social investment. Thus, overall, under CDS, it is the state, rather than market, that provides the main impetus for development. It dictates policies, determines the directions of investment, and nature and pace of growth.67 In addition, it holds its right to be directly involved in production as occasion demands, as sacrosanct. Hence, if East Asia, for instance, would seem to be conforming to neo-­ classicism at the latter period of its development,68 this is merely incidental— something that came only after the consolidation of the export-led, state-directed model that it had earlier adopted. The East Asian economies were all led in a gradualist approach, by their respective state, in the direction of neo-classical market mechanism, free trade, and economic liberalization, as the growth and development processes deepened. Imports were gradually and cautiously liberalized at a pace dictated only by the state, not market forces. The second set of assumptions disputed by the CDS model is that which takes intervention as inherently distortive. What CDS has demonstrated in the highly effective economies of East Asia is that some degree of specificity in analysis is called for here, underpinned by the nature of the state that is intervening, and the manner of its intervention. Intervention by a distorted and disoriented state in economic development process can hardly be expected to throw up positive outcomes. On the other hand, a self-assured state that comes with the right orientation, requisite capacity, autonomy, and hegemony will intervene more responsibly, and with greater chances of engendering desirable outcomes. Significantly, the empirical study by Garbonnier et al. point in the direction that Africa and East Asia actually do not pose “any significant difference in the level of government involvement in the domestic economy….”69 This is a thesis on the intensity, dimensions, and span of intervention. It, even if inadvertently, validates the position, heretofore canvassed, that state intervention in the economic process in Africa has covered the entire post-colonial era—a reality of the post-colonial African state, as it were. It also conforms to the proposition that it is the developmental orientation of state intervention, rather than any and all forms of intervention, that is relevant to the developmental state discourse. The overriding concern here, as aptly noted by Ihonvbere,70 is whether the manner of intervention promotes or retards growth. Beyond that, it is also important to investigate whether or not such intervention also actually translates into social development. As such, the dominance by the state, and total incorporation of society in Mobutu Sese Sekou’s Zaire, complete as it was, would ordinarily not warrant the type of interrogation that a developmental state evinces. This is because outside of the fact of state intervention is the context, texture, and outcome of such intervention in developmental terms. While it may thus not be unusual that there is no “significant difference in the

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level of government involvement in the domestic economy between the countries of the two regions (Africa and East Asia),” as Carbonnier et al. aver, the same cannot be true of “the quality of institutions and governance indicators, ….”71 Attendant upon this is the criticality of planning to CDS. Here again, the logic of evidence compels a disputation of the widely held thesis, articulated most concisely by Moore, that rent-seeking desires provide the motivation for state involvement in an economy.72 This is a perspective that discountenances the basic differentiations between market-augmenting planning (which reduces obstacles or market imperfections that hinder private business) and a market-­ repressing course of action.73 CDS is predicated upon the fundamental assumption that the institution of private ownership is sine qua non for economic expansion, albeit to be held in the context of strict regulation, such that such rights do not degenerate into obscene income inequality that may threaten social stability. The economic model also recognizes that development is a function of economic and meta-­ economic (institutional) factors, and underscores the need to align both, for effective delivery of set national goals. It is also taken for granted that CDS is not monolithic. There are variants to it, denominated in the pattern of relations between the state and business on the one hand, and the mode of delivery of the outcome on the other. Thus, Japan Inc. is about consensus between government and business, where the two function and relate as equals. On the other hand, Korea Inc. is more orientated toward government dominance, with the latter often setting the policies and rules for business to follow. To the extent that the African state is still relatively weak, it does not possess the type of advanced capacity that would make Korea Inc. easily replicable on the continent. Indeed, it is trite that the parameters of regulation and control be made proportionate to the capacity quotient of the state.74 It would seem, in the circumstances, that a variant of Japan Inc.—that thrives on consensual orientation between state and market, on key policy frameworks—may be more adaptable for Africa. Here, the private sector operates as a partner, in a creatively engineered compact for development, rather than a mere appendage, condemned to a paternalist relationship with the state. Taiwan and South Korea also provide the two variants on mode of delivery, which broadly represent the two contending poles. While Taiwan grew its economy through small- and medium-scale enterprises, in South Korea, the approach was through overt reliance and patronage of conglomerates, the chaebol. South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission categorized some 45 companies as belonging in the chaebol category. The ten largest of these privately quoted but family-based companies, including Hyundai, LG, Samsung, Hanjin, Kumho, Lottte, and SK Group, “own more than 27 percent of all business assets in South Korea”75 and held “a nearly two-thirds market share in its manufacturing by the end of the 1990s, according to the WTO.” The largest of them all, Samsung, accounts for one-fifth of Korea’s exports,76 and 17 percent of the country’s US$1082 billion gross domestic product (GDP).77

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Much of what goes as private sector in most of the African countries is still bereft of a strong enough capital base, operational efficiency, and embeddedness that would make them capable of serving as the vanguard for national economic development. It is still also much beholden to foreign capital, with the transnational corporations, which are its purveyors, exercising what the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) refers to as “power without responsibility.”78 The African economic milieu is, therefore, still largely characterized by a legion of small-scale operators, albeit many of them in the informal sector. They already account for 90 percent of all businesses on the continent,79 more than 70 percent of total employment,80 and, according to the World Bank, up to 33 percent of GDP in emerging economies81 and as high as 50 percent of GDP in Nigeria, the largest economy on the continent.82 Indeed, much of the hope attending extant development efforts on the African continent, eliciting its description as “the world’s most exciting economic frontier,” derives from the operations of the micro-, small-, and medium-scale (MSMS) enterprises. It is thus evident that these enterprises can be carefully nurtured, supported, and incentivized to serve as platforms for the economic expansion agenda on the continent. Indeed, as the World Economic Forum noted: Helping African SMEs to flourish is crucial not only for Africa but for the global economy, because it creates a growing middle class with disposable income, in tandem with market opportunities for new investors.83

Toward a Holistic Policy Framework Beyond the nature of the African state needed to deliver on the task of economic growth and development is the specific subject of the policy framework that the countries on the continent would need to emplace in their quest for improved economic performance. Court and Yanagihara’s aggregate of a “broader list of socioeconomic fundamentals”84 these countries need to focus on is quite adaptable here, as the critical deliverables for the African CDS. These include establishing a foundation of law; maintaining a non-distortionary policy environment, including macroeconomic stability … (maintaining low inflation; maintaining stable and positive real interest rates, keeping budget deficits and external debt manageable); investing in basic social services and infrastructure … (i.e. human and physical capital); protecting the vulnerable; … protecting the environment; and maintaining greater outward orientation (including maintaining a competitive and stable exchange rate; low levels of tariffs and quotas; and openness to foreign technology and investment).85

The centrality of human capital development (education, health, and nutrition) in all of these has been variously underscored in the literature, and among the

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development partners. Again, the experience in East Asia points in the same direction. Malaysia, for example, commits a quarter of its national expenditure on education, and, in Korea, teaching (a component of education) remains virtually the most valued engagement. Extant infrastructure deficit on the African continent, according to the African Development Bank’s African Economic Outlook, 2018, would require some US$130–170 billion, on an annual basis, to ameliorate; “with a financing gap in the range of $80-$108 billion.” It is trite that the continent’s economy cannot attain the level of growth required for its transformation with this gap in critical infrastructure. Bridging the gap, therefore, is a critical desideratum, following closely on the heels of human capital development in order of priority. In doing so, Africa need not submit to the bogeyman of Chinese sinister intendment in working with the continent in this regard, which is becoming increasingly trenchant in Western policy and media circles. A determination to engage China strategically on the basis of well-articulated objectives, and the possibility of this engagement being undertaken in a collective manner by groups of African countries, promise to moderate whatever hidden agenda of control that Beijing may nurture over the continent. Delivering on all of these objectives would equate what Carbonnier et al. describe as “a unique mix of market liberalization and strategic government intervention”86—a state developmental model—that formed the basis of the rapid growth and development of the economies of East Asian countries.

Conclusion While the conditions prevalent in the global system when East Asia embarked upon its state-led, outward-bound economic development process may have largely dissipated, the truth is, that, in itself, underscores rather than vitiates the imperative of a strong state that is wholly development-focused in Africa. In addition, untrammeled neoliberalism has shown itself inappropriate for Africa’s quest for sustainable economic development. The continent must, therefore, commit to the evolution of such a strong state as a critical first step on the path to rapid and sustained economic growth, without which development will continue to be a mirage. The building blocks of such a state have heretofore been highlighted, defined on the basis of the peculiar historical circumstances within which extant states evolved in Africa. The emulation possibilities, and limitations in the East Asian experience, would continue to be a guide as Africa threads its way through the complex labyrinth of economic growth and development going forward.

Notes 1. dos Santos, J.F. de Sousa (2015). “Why SMEs are key to growth in Africa,” 04 August. www.weforum.org

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2. Mimiko, N.O. (2018). “The Cultural Context of Policy Choices, and Development Outcomes in Africa and East Asia,” The Toyin Falola @ 65 Conference, on African Knowledges and Alternative Futures, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria Jan. 29–31, 2018; and Sachs, J.D. (2005). The End of Poverty: How we can make it happen in our lifetime, London: Penguin Books. 3. The Economist (2016). “Africa’s Fragile Democracies,” London, 20 Aug. 4. Stiglitz, J.E. (1996). “Some Lessons from the East Asian Miracle,” The World Bank Research Observer. 11 (2). pp.  151–77, https://doi.org/10.1093/ wbro/11.2.151; Woo-Cumings, M. (ed.). (1999). The Developmental State, Ithaca: Cornell University Press; Dwoden, R. (2009). Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles, London: Portobello Books Ltd.; Acmoglu, D. and Robinson, J.A. (2012). The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty: Why Nations Fail, New York, NY: Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc.; Mimiko, N.O. (1997). “The Capitalist Developmental State and the Invalidation of Neo-Classicism in South Korea,” Korea Observer, Seoul, XXVVIII (2), Summer, pp. 241–267; and Ihonvbere, J. (1989) (ed.), The Political Economy of Crisis and Underdevelopment in Africa: Selected Works of Claude Ake, Lagos: JAD Publishers. 5. Meles Zenawi Foundation (2015). “Concept Note on Symposium of The African Democratic Developmental State,” Kigali, Aug. 21. 6. Adesina, A. (2018). “Korea is a model for Africa’s industrialization, says President Adesina,” APO News Release: African Development Bank, 2018. www. afdb.org, May 21. 7. Sanusi II, M. (2018). “African Development Bank Group Annual Meetings: Regional cooperation, structural reforms key to economic transformation,” www.afdb.org. May 22. 8. Mimiko, N.O. (2018). “Trends, Future Outlook of Africa’s Leadership, Development,” New Telegraph, Abuja, Jan. 1, 2, 3. 9. Ibid. 10. Alozieuwa, S.H.O. (2010). “Beyond the Ethno-Religious Theory of the Jos Conflict,” Africa Peace and Conflict Journal, 3(2), pp. 18–31. Available: www. humansecuritygateway.com/documents/APCJ_Vol3No2Dec2010.pdf; and McLoughlin, G. and Bouchat, C.J. (2013). Nigerian Unity: In the Balance, June. US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, Carlisle, PA & Press. http://www.StrategicStudiesInstitute.army.mil/ 11. Mimiko, N.O. (1998). “Marx and Peripheral Social Formations: The Significance of the Political Economy Approach,” The Nigerian Journal of the Social Sciences, Ado-Ekiti, 11(1), pp. 64–88. 12. Mimiko, N.O. (1997). “The Capitalist Developmental State and the Invalidation of Neo-Classicism in South Korea,” Korea Observer, Seoul, XXVVIII (2), Summer, pp. 241–267. 13. Kishtainy, N. (2012). “Marxist Economics,” The Economics Book, London: DK. 14. Conway, E. (2009). 50 Economics Ideas you really need to know, London: Quercus. 15. Kishtainy, N. (2012). “Marxist Economics,” The Economics Book, London: DK. 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid.

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18. Mimiko, N.O. (1997). “The Capitalist Developmental State and the Invalidation of Neo-Classicism in South Korea,” Korea Observer, Seoul, XXVVIII (2), Summer, pp. 241–267. 19. Keynes, J.M. (1936). The General Theory of Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, London: Palgrave Macmillan. 20. Conway, E. (2009). 50 Economics Ideas you really need to know, London: Quercus. 21. Kishtainy, N. (2012). “Marxist Economics,” The Economics Book, London: DK. 22. Keynes, J.M. (1936). The General Theory of Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, London: Palgrave Macmillan. 23. Kishtainy, N. (2012). “Marxist Economics,” The Economics Book, London: DK. 24. Ibid., p. 60. 25. Friedman, M. (1971). A Theory of the Consumption Function, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 6th printing; and with Anna Schwartz (1963). A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 26. The Economist (1996). London, March 3, 1996. 27. Amsden, A. H. (1989). Asia’s Next Giant: Korea and Late Industrialization, New York: Oxford University Press. 28. Mimiko, N.O. (1997). “The Capitalist Developmental State and the Invalidation of Neo-Classicism in South Korea,” Korea Observer, Seoul, XXVVIII (2), Summer, pp. 241–267. 29. Smith, A. (1776). An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell. 30. Richardo, D. (1817). On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, London: John Murray. 31. Moore, M. (1989). “The Fruits and Fallacies of Neoliberalism: The Case of Irrigation Policy,” World Development, 17(11). 32. Mimiko, N.O. (1995). “The Structural Adjustment Program and the Deepening of the African Economic Crisis,” in N.O. Mimiko, (ed.), Crises and Contradictions in Nigeria’s Democratization Program, 1986–1993, Akure: Stebak Publishers, pp. 20–43. 33. Cortes, C.L. and Flores, C.S. (2013). “Introduction,” in (eds.), Democratic Renewal vs. Neoliberalism: Towards Empowerment and Inclusion, Sixth South-­ South Institute, Santiago de Chile, Buenos Aires: Latin American Council of Social Science. 34. Olomola, I. (1969). Main Trends in African History: From Earliest Times to 1900, Ado-Ekiti: Omolayo Standard Press; and Falola, T. (ed.). (2000). Africa, Vol I: Africa History Before 1885, Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press. 35. Mimiko, N.O. “The State and the Growth/Development Agenda: Africa and East Asia in Context,” in D. Kolawole (Ed.) Issues in Nigerian Government and Politics, Ibadan: Dekaal Publishers, pp. 162–177. 36. Carbonnier, G., Chakraborty, P., Dalle Mulle, E., and Presente, C.I. (2013). “Asian And African Development Trajectories: Revisiting Facts and Figures,” International Development Policy, Policy Brief-Working Papers, The Institute, Geneva. Online since 28 May 2013, connection on 24 Jan. 2018. http://journals.openedition.org/poldev/682 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid.

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39. Reynolds, 1985. Cited in Zubair Iqbal, Moshin S. Khan (eds.) (1998). Trade Reforms and Regional Integration in Africa, Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund, p. 149. 40. Mimiko, NO. (1998). “The State and the Growth/Development Agenda: Africa and East Asia in Context,” in D.  Kolawole (Ed.) Issues in Nigerian Government and Politics, Ibadan: Dekaal Publishers, pp. 162–177. 41. Zakaria, F. (2018). “Give South Korea a gold medal,” Washington Post Writers Group, Feb. 8. 42. Mimiko, N.O. (2012). Globalization: The Politics of Global Economic Relations and International Business, Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, p. 82. 43. Mimiko, N.O. (2011). “Africa in World Politics: The Dynamics of a Continent’s Shrinking Space in a New Global System: The Laurent Gbagbo Metaphor.” Keynote Paper, University of Texas at Austin Africa Conference, Austin, TX, USA, March 25. 44. Meles Zenawi Foundation (2015). “Concept Note on Symposium of The African Democratic Developmental State,” Kigali, Aug. 21. 45. Woo-Cumings, M. (ed.). (1999). The Developmental State, Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 46. Johnson, C. (1994). “What is the best system of national economic management for Korea?”, in L. Cho and Y.H. Kim (eds.), Korea’s Political Economy: An Institutional Perspective, Boulder, CO: Westview Press. 47. Kim, Dong-Hyun (1994). “Development Experience and Future Direction of the Korean Experience,” Korea Observer, XXV(2), Summer. 48. Mimiko, N.O. (1997). “The Capitalist Developmental State and the Invalidation of Neo-Classicism in South Korea,” Korea Observer, Seoul, XXVVIII (2), Summer, pp. 241–267. 49. Johnson, C. (1994). “What is the best system of national economic management for Korea?”, in L. Cho and YH Kim (eds.), Korea’s Political Economy: An Institutional Perspective, Boulder, CO: Westview Press. 50. Kishtainy, N. (2012). “Marxist Economics,” The Economics Book, London: DK, p. 102. 51. Xinhua News Agency on Twitter, 19/02/18; and Zhao Lei, “Anti-poverty campaign goal,” China Daily, 2018-02-20. www.chinadaily.ccom.cn 52. Amsden, A.H. (1989). Asia’s Next Giant: Korea and Late Industrialization, New York: Oxford University Press. 53. Mimiko, N.O. (1997). “The Capitalist Developmental State and the Invalidation of Neo-Classicism in South Korea,” Korea Observer, Seoul, XXVVIII (2), Summer, pp. 241–267. 54. Mimiko, NO. (1998). “The State and the Growth/Development Agenda: Africa and East Asia in Context,” in D.  Kolawole (ed.) Issues in Nigerian Government and Politics, Ibadan: Dekaal Publishers, pp. 162–177. 55. Walsh, J. (1993). “Asia’s Different Drum,” Time, NY, NY, June 14. 56. Cited in McCormick, J. (2004). Comparative Politics in Transition, 4th edition, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, p. 21. 57. Mimiko, N.O. (1998). “Economic Crisis and the Consolidation of Democracy in South Korea,” Ife Social Sciences Review, OAU, Ile-Ife, July, 275–284. 58. Federal Government of Nigeria, 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended). 59. The Economist (2016). “Africa’s Fragile Democracies,” London, 20 Aug.

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60. Ibid. 61. Stoessinger, J.G. (2001) Why Nations Go To War, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/ Thomson. 62. Kumar, L.T. et al. (1995). “The State or the System? The Role of the State in the Economic Development of Greece and Korea,” The Korea Journal of International Studies, 26(1), Summer. 63. Mimiko, N.O. (1998). “The State and the Growth/Development Agenda: Africa and East Asia in Context,” in D.  Kolawole (ed.) Issues in Nigerian Government and Politics, Ibadan: Dekaal Publishers, pp. 162–177. 64. Acmoglu, D. and Robinson, J.A. (2012). The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty: Why Nations Fail, New York, NY: Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc. 65. Mimiko, N.O. (2018). “Trends, Future Outlook of Africa’s Leadership, Development,” New Telegraph, Abuja, Jan. 1, 2, 3. 66. Acmoglu, D. and Robinson, J.A. (2012). The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty: Why Nations Fail, New York, NY: Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc. 67. Mimiko, N.O. (1997). “The Capitalist Developmental State and the Invalidation of Neo-Classicism in South Korea,” Korea Observer, Seoul, XXVVIII (2), Summer, pp. 241–267. 68. World Bank (1993). The East Asian Miracle: Economic Growth and Public Policy. Washington DC: The World Bank. 69. Carbonnier, G., Chakraborty, P., Dalle Mulle, E., and Presente, C.I. (2013). “Asian And African Development Trajectories: Revisiting Facts and Figures,” International Development Policy. 70. Ihonbvere, J. (1995). “Beyond Governance: The State and Democratization in Africa,” Journal of Asian and African Studies, 50. 71. Carbonnier, G., Chakraborty, P., Dalle Mulle, E., and Presente, C.I. (2013). “Asian And African Development Trajectories: Revisiting Facts and Figures,” International Development Policy. 72. Moore, M. (1989). “The Fruits and Fallacies of Neoliberalism: The Case of Irrigation Policy,” World Development, 17(11). 73. Lim, Youngil (1981). Government Policy and Private Enterprise: Korean Experience in Industrialization, Berkeley, CA: Centre for Korean Studies. 74. Mimiko, N.O. (1998). “From Neo-regulation to Guided De-regulation: The Nigerian Economy in Transition, 1993–1998”, in D. Kolawole and N.O. Mimiko (eds.), Political Democratization and Economic Deregulation Under the Abacha Administration, 1993–1998, (Ado Ekiti: Dept. of Political Science, Ondo State University), Ibid., pp. 80–93. 75. Pae, P. (2018). “South Korea’s Chaelbol,” Bloomberg, Jan. 14, 2015, updated Oct. 5, 2018. www.bloomberg.com 76. Tejada, C. (2017). “Money, Power, Family: Inside South Korea’s Chaebol,” New York Times, NY, Feb. 17. www.nytimes.com 77. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/samsung 78. United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (1995). States in Disarray: The Social Effects of Globalization, Geneva: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD). 79. https://www.ifc.org

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80. Upadhyay, A. and Mante, Y. (2018). “Supporting the Growth of MSMEs across Africa: Why we invested in Lidya,” Omidyar Network. http://medium.com 81. Chima, O. (2018). “MSMEs as Gateway to Economic Prosperity,” Thisday, Abuja, www.thisday.com. Assessed Dec. 22, 2018. 82. @ProfOsinbajo. Accessed Dec. 22, 2018. 83. dos Santos, J.F. de Sousa (2015). “Why SMEs are key to growth in Africa,” 04 August. www.weforum.org 84. Court, J. and Yanagihara, T. (n.d). “Asia and Africa into the global economy: background and introduction,” http://unu.edu 85. Ibid. 86. Carbonnier, G., Chakraborty, P., Dalle Mulle, E., and Presente, C.I. (2013). “Asian And African Development Trajectories: Revisiting Facts and Figures,” International Development Policy, Policy Brief-Working Papers, The Institute, Geneva. Online since May 28, 2013, connection on January 24, 2018. http:// journals.openedition.org/poldev/682

References Acmoglu, D., and J.A. Robinson. 2012. The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty: Why Nations Fail. New  York: Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc.. Amsden, A.H. 1989. Asia’s Next Giant: Korea and Late Industrialization. New York: Oxford University Press. Carbonnier, G., P. Chakraborty, E. Dalle Mulle, and C.I. Presente. 2013. Asian And African Development Trajectories: Revisiting Facts and Figures. International Development Policy, Policy Brief-Working Papers, The Institute, Geneva. Online since 28 May 2013, connection on 24 January 2018. http://journals.openedition. org/poldev/682. Accessed 22 Nov 2018. Churchill, W. 2004. Comparative Politics in Transition, ed. J.  McCormick. 4th ed. Belmont: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning. Conway, E. 2009. 50 Economics Ideas You Really Need to Know. London: Quercus. Cortes, C.L., and C.S.  Flores. 2013. Introduction. In Democratic Renewal vs. Neoliberalism: Towards Empowerment and Inclusion. Sixth South-South Institute, Santiago de Chile, Buenos Aires: Latin American Council of Social Science. Court, J., and T.  Yanagihara. (n.d). Asia and Africa into the Global Economy: Background and Introduction. http://unu.edu. Accessed 22 Nov 2018. dos Santos, J.F. de Sousa. 2015. Why SMEs Are Key to Growth in Africa. 04 August. www.weforum.org. Accessed 5 Dec 2018. Dwoden, R. 2009. Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles. London: Portobello Books Ltd.. Falola, T., ed. 2000. Africa, Vol I: Africa History Before 1885. Durham: Carolina Academic Press. Federal Government of Nigeria. 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended). Friedman, M. 1971. A Theory of the Consumption Function. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 6th Printing. Friedman, M., and A.  Schwartz. 1963. A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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Ihonvbere, J., ed. 1989. The Political Economy of Crisis and Underdevelopment in Africa: Selected Works of Claude Ake. Lagos: JAD Publishers. ———. 1995. Beyond Governance: The State and Democratization in Africa. Journal of Asian and African Studies 50: 141–158. Johnson, C. 1994. What Is the Best System of National Economic Management for Korea? In Korea’s Political Economy: An Institutional Perspective, ed. L.  Cho and Y.H. Kim. Boulder: Westview Press. Keynes, J.M. 1936. The General Theory of Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Kim, Dong-Hyun. 1994. Development experience and future direction of the Korean experience. Korea Observer XXV (2, Summer). Kishtainy, N. 2012. Marxist Economics. In The Economics Book. London: DK Publishing. Kumar, L.T., et al. 1995. The State or the System? The Role of the State in the Economic Development of Greece and Korea. The Korea Journal of International Studies 26 (1, Summer). Lim, Youngil. 1981. Government Policy and Private Enterprise: Korean Experience in Industrialization. Berkeley: Centre for Korean Studies. Meles Zenawi Foundation. 2015. Concept Note on Symposium of The African Democratic Developmental State. Kigali, August 21. Mimiko, N.O. 1995a. The Structural Adjustment Program and the Deepening of the African Economic Crisis. In Crises and Contradictions in Nigeria’s Democratization Program, 1986–1993, ed. N.O. Mimiko. Akure: Stebak Publishers. ———. 1995b. From Agitation for Human Rights to the Pursuit of Power: The Impact of Human Rights Organizations on Nigeria’s Aborted Democratization Program. In Crises and Contradictions in Nigeria’s Democratization Program, 1986–1993, ed. N.O. Mimiko. Akure: Stebak Publishers. ———. 1997. The Capitalist Developmental State and the Invalidation of Neo-­ Classicism in South Korea. Korea Observer XXVVIII (2, Summer). ———. 1998a. Marx and Peripheral Social Formations: The Significance of the Political Economy Approach. The Nigerian Journal of the Social Sciences 11 (1). ———. 1998b. The State and the Growth/Development Agenda: Africa and East Asia in Context. In Issues in Nigerian Government and Politics, ed. D. Kolawole. Ibadan: Dekaal Publishers. ———. 1998c. Economic Crisis and the Consolidation of Democracy in South Korea. Ife Social Sciences Review, OAU, Ile-Ife, July, 275–284. ———. 2011. Africa in World Politics: The Dynamics of a Continent’s Shrinking Space in a New Global System: The Laurent Gbagbo Metaphor. Keynote Paper, University of Texas at Austin Africa Conference, Austin, March 25. ———. 2012. Globalization: The Politics of Global Economic Relations and International Business. Durham: Carolina Academic Press. ———. 2017. Leadership and Development in Africa: Trends and Future Outlook. Keynote Address, 3rd Public Administration Faculty Conference, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, November 27. ———. 2018a. Trends, Future Outlook of Africa’s Leadership, Development. New Telegraph, Abuja, January 1, 2, 3. ———. 2018b. The Cultural Context of Policy Choices, and Development Outcomes in Africa and East Asia. The Toyin Falola @ 65 Conference, on African Knowledges and Alternative Futures, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, January 29–31.

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Moore, M. 1989. The Fruits and Fallacies of Neoliberalism: The Case of Irrigation Policy. World Development 17 (11): 1733. Olomola, I. 1969. Main Trends in African History: From Earliest Times to 1900. Ado-­ Ekiti: Omolayo Standard Press. Pae, P. 2018. South Korea’s Chaebol. Bloomberg, January 14, updated October 5, 2018. www.bloomberg.com. Accessed 18 Dec 2010. Reynolds. 1985. Cited in Zubair Iqbal, Moshin S. Khan (eds.). (1998). Trade Reforms and Regional Integration in Africa. Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund. Richardo, D. 1817. The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. London: John Murray. Sachs, J.D. 2005. The End of Poverty: How We Can Make it Happen in Our Lifetime. London: Penguin Books. Smith, A. 1776. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell. Stiglitz, J.E. 1996. Some Lessons from the East Asian Miracle. The World Bank Research Observer. 11 (2): 151. https://doi.org/10.1093/wbro/11.2.151. Stoessinger, J.G. 2001. Why Nations Go To War. Belmont: Wadsworth/Thomson. Tejada, C. 2017. Money, Power, Family: Inside South Korea’s Chaebol. New York Times, February 17. www.nytimes.com. Accessed 4 Oct 2018. The Economist. 1996. Chicago’s Nobel Prize Savages, London, March 3. ———. 2016. Africa’s Fragile Democracies. London, August 20. Upadhyay, A., and Y. Mante. 2018. Supporting the Growth of MSMEs Across Africa: Why We Invested in Lidya. Omidyar Network. http://medium.com. Accessed 18 Dec 2018. Walsh, J. 1993. Asia’s Different Drum. Time Magazine, June 14. Woo-Cumings, M., ed. 1999. The Developmental State. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. World Bank. 1993. The East Asian Miracle: Economic Growth and Public Policy. Washington DC: The World Bank. Xinhua News Agency on Twitter, 19/02/18. www.xinhuanet.com. Accessed 4 Feb 2018. Zakaria, F. 2018. Give South Korea a Gold Medal. Washington Post, Writers Group, February 8. Zhao Lei. 2018. Anti-Poverty Campaign Goal. China Daily, February 20. www.chinadaily.ccom.cn. Accessed 4 Feb 2018. https://www.ifc.org. Accessed 20 Dec 2018. http://medium.com. Accessed 20 Dec 2018. www.thisdaylive.com. Accessed 20 Dec 2018. @ProfOsinbajo. Accessed 23 Dec 2018.

PART II

African Political Economy Thinkers

CHAPTER 9

Kwame Nkrumah’s Political Economy of Africa Jasper Abembia Ayelazuno and Lord Mawuko-Yevugah

Introduction Kwame Nkrumah is a world figure, who, almost three decades after his death, was voted in 1999 as Africa’s ‘Man of the Millennium’ by BBC listeners in Africa. He is remembered for many accomplishments in the 63 short years that he lived on this earth. For example, he was widely known for his revolutionary, albeit tactical, leadership of the anti-colonial struggle in Ghana; renowned for his courageous and visionary leadership of the post-independence Ghanaian state; famed for his relentless pursuit of the goals of African unity and Pan-­ Africanism; reputed as an intellectual of unmatched pedigree; and outstanding as an unremitting believer and advocate of a just world order free of colonialism and neocolonialism. As an intellectual, Dr Nkrumah wrote many ground-­ breaking books and articles, and has given speeches on the political economy of Africa. However, his Neo-colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism (henceforth, NTLI) is a classic of the critical perspective of international political economy (IPE). Typical of this perspective, the book provides us with fascinating insights about the vicissitudes of the economies of African countries in the twenty-first century capitalist global economy, giving us a truer picture than the dominant liberal work on the continent published by the World Bank and other liberal scholars. Relatively little known as NTLI is, it deserves to be placed side by side on the shelves with classics of this perspective such as Nikolai

J. A. Ayelazuno (*) Department of Communication, Innovation and Technology, University of Development Studies, Tamale, Ghana L. Mawuko-Yevugah Public Management and International Relations, Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, Accra, Ghana © The Author(s) 2020 S. O. Oloruntoba, T. Falola (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of African Political Economy, Palgrave Handbooks in IPE, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38922-2_9

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Bukharin’s Imperialism and World Economy and Vladimir Lenin’s Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. In his helpful and insightful survey of Marxist writings on imperialism, Anthony Brewer made no mention of Nkrumah— despite mentioning neocolonialism and discussing colonialism (Brewer 1990). In light of the fact that Nkrumah was indeed one of the first to use the term, ‘neo-colonialism’, and given his penetrating analysis of colonialism and neocolonialism, this was an unfortunate and perhaps, deliberate omission in this influential book on critical IPE. It is therefore important to recover Nkrumah from the margins of critical IPE and place him in the limelight that his work deserves in this field. Drawing mainly on NTLI, but also from other books he has written, we argue that Dr Nkrumah made many insightful contributions to our understanding of Africa’s position in the global economy, doing this at a critical historical juncture when the states in the continent had just gained independence and started engaging with forces of the global economy in their efforts to build their economies and provide their citizens with the basic necessities of life. Indeed, in NTLI can be found many fascinating insights, penetrating analysis, helpful conceptual apparatuses, and well-founded political and development praxis which—fast forward to the 1990s and 2000s—all became paradigmatic approaches and discourses of critical IPE on Africa and the global economy broadly. With his unique position of a theorist with critical perspectives of IPE on Africa, and as a political leader spearheading the development of a newly independent country—in fact, the whole continent, both independent and colonised countries alike—Dr Nkrumah not only advocated key development policy interventions for Africa based on his thinking about the capitalist global economy. Even more than this, and in his own country, Ghana, he actually started implementing some of these policies. There are few cases from anywhere in the world where a person’s theoretical ideas and policy praxis stand the test of time and are invoked and re-invoked long after he has been dead and gone. This is where Dr Nkrumah stands out both as a theorist and practitioner of African political economy. Though his critical IPE ideas and policies were so harshly criticised by liberal political economists (see e.g. , Killick 1978, 2010), they have stood the test of time, remaining fresh and germane across a long span of time. For example, his state-led and nationalist industrialisation policies, particularly on the extraction of the natural resources of Africa, have returned as the new panacea of development in Africa in the twenty-first century, with many natural resource-rich countries implementing local content policies (LCPs) which are as nationalist as Nkrumah’s policies on mining and other sectors of the Ghanaian economy were. In the rest of the chapter, we flesh our arguments in the following order: to situate Nkrumah’s work in the proper political economy strand, we present in capsule, in the following section, the doctrines of the mainstream/neoclassical political and critical political economy, identifying Nkrumah with the latter. In the third section, we delve into NTLI and other works of Nkrumah to lay out some of the fundamental theoretical insights that he contributed to the critical

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perspective of IPE, particularly with respect to the dynamics of the global economy and how they impinge on development in Africa. As aforementioned, Nkrumah occupied a unique position of a scholar of critical IPE and political leader of a newly independent country, Ghana and a position that allowed him to merge theory with praxis. In the penultimate section, we describe briefly the development policies Dr Nkrumah implemented in Ghana, informed by his critical IPE perspective of the exploitative terms on which the economies of African countries were integrated into the capitalist global economy. This is followed by our concluding remarks on what we sought to do and did in the chapter.

Classical/Mainstream and Critical/Marxian Political Economy To claim, as we do here, that Dr Nkrumah contributed many great insights to African political economy is meaningless without the clarification of political economy as a discipline and political praxis, considering the vast body of work subsumed under political economy and the thinkers mentioned as the high priests of the field. As a discipline of the social sciences, with unique canons of theory, methodology, praxis, and politics, political economy was originally associated with classical and neoclassical economics (Caporaso and Levine 1992: 33). Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations—not his The Theory of the Moral Sentiments—John S Mill’s Principles of Political Economy, David Ricardo’s The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, and W. Stanley Jevons’ The Theory of Political Economy are some of the classic texts of political economy, in which the foundational theoretical principles of (neo)classical economics are espoused (see Caporaso and Levine 1992; Hunt and Lautzenheiser 2011). Other names so often celebrated as foundational thinkers of classical political economy—but whose ideas constitute the canonical theoretical, methodological, and political doctrines of (neo)classical economics—are Jeremy Bentham, J.B. Say, and Nassau Senior and the ‘Mount Pelerin Society’ scholars like F.A. Hayek, Milton Friedman, and Ludvig von Mises. The political economy that these thinkers are associated with is the mainstream version of the field, from which (neo)classical economics emerged with its ahistorical and mathematical methodology of studying and understanding a phenomenon which is social in nature. Emerging from this version of political economy are (neo)classical economic dogmas such as the marginalist, rationalist, individualist, and utilitarian theories of the behaviour of people towards each other as they strive for survival, articulated in the work of the likes of Bentham, Say, and Senior (Hunt and Lautzenheiser 2011: 125), as well as the laissez-faire and free market principles of the workings and management of the economy as articulated in Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations. To be added to these are the dualist ontology of the world, in which the economic sphere, governed by rational behaviour and

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dynamics of the market, is separate from the political sphere and its tendencies towards irrational and corrupt behaviour; and thus, the bifurcation between politics and economics, and between the public and the private realms of society (Nitzan and Bichler 2009). Some assumptions have been made about the world based on these dogmas. At the individual level, the natural bliss of the free market is taken for granted, where everybody, irrespective of class and power, tend to be better off if the market is allowed to work unfettered. At the national level, it is assumed that every country tends to be better off with free international trade, irrespective of their location on the axis of power and geographically, if this trade is based on the comparative advantage of the countries involved. As the stock-in-trade of classical political economy, these are not ideas of the political economy Nkrumah contributed to. On the contrary, Nkrumah will abjure most of the philosophical and political claims of mainstream or (neo)classical political economy. Some of these claims need highlighting to draw a contrast between Nkrumah’s ideas of critical political economy and those of the classical political economy. Apart from his famous ‘invisible hand of the market’, Adam Smith believed that, ‘the market was the superior means for the abolition of class, inequality, and privilege’. He argued that apart from ‘the necessary minimum’, the intervention of the state ‘would only stifle the equalising process of competitive exchange and create monopolies and protectionism. He further argued that whereas the state upholds class, the market can potentially undo class society’ (cited in Esping-­ Andersen 1990: 9). For Bentham, ‘all human activity springs from the desire to maximise pleasure’ and all human beings are ‘calculating maximizers of pleasure’. He argued that in ‘the general tenor of life, in every human breast, self-­ regarding interest is predominant over all other interests put together...Self preference has place everywhere’ (Hunt and Lautzenheiser 2011:131). The capitalist mode of production, according to Say, does not engender class conflict. On the contrary, it promotes harmony between classes. In his view, classical political economy ‘proves that the interest of the rich and poor ... are not opposed to each other, and that all rivalships are mere folly’ (Hunt and Lautzenheiser 2011: 137). David Ricardo believed that international trade is good for every country because of the comparative advantage they have in the goods they produce and sell. In terms of efficiency and cost-effectiveness of labour, some countries are better at producing some goods than others, and thus have relative advantage in the production of the goods they trade with each other. Trade between countries is mutually beneficial because of this relative advantage, and for that matter countries need not try to produce goods that they do not have comparative advantage (Hunt and Lautzenheiser 2011: 119). As the next section illustrate, Nkrumah was not a classical political economist. He was a Marxian or critical political economist. If Adam Smith is the high priest of classical political economy, Karl Marx is the equivalent of critical political economy. Indeed, the subtitle of Marx’s trilogy of his magnum opus, Capital, is a Critique of Political Economy. In this work, he took issues with

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some of the aforementioned thinkers of classical political economy, whom he referred to as ‘bourgeois political economists’, and to their field of study variously as ‘classical political economy’, ‘bourgeois economics’, ‘vulgar economics’, and ‘classical economics’. And some of whom (like Senior and Say) he treated with contempt: ‘the vulgar economists who, in their shallowness, make it a principle to worship appearances only’ (Marx 1976: 679; see also Fine and Saad-Filho 2004). Karl Marx stated and clarified the ontological, epistemological, theoretical, and political canons of critical political economy in various texts, including the Communist Manifesto, the Preface to the Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, the Introduction to the Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy, and his trilogy of Capital just mentioned. The centrepiece of critical political economy, distilled from Marx’s work, pivots around the organisation of production and reproduction of people in time and space, paying attention all the time to the power relations, which underpin all historical modes of production and how these modes of production change over time. The theoretical and political foci of critical political economy revolve on the way in which a society organises its economic and social production/reproduction, the social power relations that are configured from the organisation of these processes, and how these power structures might be transformed to bring about a more just social order. Production is, thus, the foundation of critical political economy because it ‘creates the material basis for all forms of social existence, and the ways in which human efforts are combined in productive processes affect all other aspects of social life, including the polity’ (Cox 1987: 1). In Marx’s terms, every society has a mode of production and its distinctive components: social property relations, forces of production, and class and class conflict. Marxian political economy looks beyond the construction of economic models built around individuals and firms pursuing individual interests, sees ‘individuals with interrelated and interdependent interests [who] act as groups or classes in conflict’ and checks for how these relations ‘impact on political, economic, and social structures, practices and outcomes’ (Albelda et al. 1987: 3). Rather than seeing society as individuals acting like Robinson Crusoe on an island, faced with the problem of scarcity and choice, Marxian political economy sees it as a social totality whose production and reproduction are organised and structured on social relations which are not power-neutral. For critical political economists, power relations saturate and frame the organisation of production, reproduction, and distribution of social surplus. In his Preface, Marx summarised some of the guiding principles of his political economy, among which he wrote his oft-cited passage: In the social production of their existence, men [and women] inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the

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economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises ….. (Marx 1977)

Marx may be accused of crude material reductionism of a rather complex social life, as well as technological determinism and teleological evolution of society from non-capitalist modes of production to capitalist. Similar to the neoclassical economists, he may even be faulted for the bifurcation of the economy and politics. There is no space here to engage these criticisms other than just to say that they do not dim the light Marx’s work shed on the distinctive insights and canons of critical political economy. One of these distinctive insights is the power relations which imbue most (if not all) historical forms of the organisation of production, distribution, and consumption of social surplus (in goods and services). In contrast to the aforementioned mainstream political economists, Marx challenged the separation of the economic from the political. He pointed out that: Liberals emphasize the voluntary nature of market exchange, which makes their economics seem like the domain of freedom. But under the gloss of market exchange lies the reality of production  – and in the realm of production, it is exploitation, not equality, that rules. In this way, the market merely serves to conceal the underlying power nature of capitalism. (Nitzan and Bichler 2009: 26)

Key to critical political economic analysis is not only the overlap between politics and economics (Williams 2004), but more importantly, the way in which the hand of the state is visible in the capitalist mode of production, never mind the claims of the aforementioned neoclassical economists to the contrary. In this regard, Ellen Wood directs us to note the unique capacity of capitalism to ‘detach economic from extra economic power’ (Wood 2003: 5). However, she points out the lie in this detachment: ‘capitalism, in some ways more than any social form, needs politically organized and legally defined stability, regularity, and predictability in its social arrangement’ and sometimes, even outright political coercion (Wood 2002: 178; 2003: 10). Another distinctive characteristic of Marxian political economy, which distinguishes it from mainstream political economy, is its political commitment to interpreting the world through the historical development of society ‘in order to change it for the better’ (Rupert and Smith 2002: 2; see also Wood 1995: 19; Williams 2004: 572). So, key to critical political economy is the political goal of the revolutionary change of the existing power relations for a more just social order in which the organisation of production, distribution, and consumption of social surplus will be based on equitable and non-exploitative social relations. Far from being an arena where the invisible hand of the market works to organise, produce, and distribute wealth efficiently and equitably for everybody to be happy, the organisation of production of social surplus is characterised by class divisions and conflicts. The possibility of the revolutionary change is linked to the inherent contradictions in the organisation of p ­ roduction

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in time and space as foreseen by Marx. He wrote in the Preface that ‘at a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production... From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution’ (Marx 1977). In the Manifesto, Marx and Engels also wrote: ‘the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles’ or the struggle between the ‘oppressor and oppressed’ (Marx and Engels 2002: 219). Focusing on the organisation of production and the associated power relations allows us not just to analyse the economy at various scales—from the family/household through the community to national, regional, and global— and at various historical conjunctures. It also allows us to analyse historical social change in the way people reproduce themselves, as well as the way in which the organisation of production is interconnected across history and scale. It is true that Marx’s main theoretical and political concerns focused on capitalism or the capitalist mode of production ‘as a specific form of social relations, a particular mode of production with its own logic of reproduction’ (Albo 2005: 64; see also Fine and Saad-Filho 2004; Harvey 2010: 15). Yet, in theorising capitalism as a unique mode of production, Marx drew a contrast between capitalist and non-capitalist social formations, offering us critical political economic lessons to study non-capitalist social formation (Cohen 2000). The conceptual apparatuses he proffered such as mode of production, property/production relations, class and class exploitation, and use and exchange value can be used to analyse different social forms and economic structures like primitive community, slave-owning, feudal, tributary, and simple commodity production (Amin 1974a, b). He also illustrates how these social forms/economic structures may coexist in different proportions and may be interconnected in time and space, something illustrated clearly, perhaps, not better anywhere else than in Eric Wolf’s Europe and the People Without History (Wolf 1982). Robert Cox, for example, points out that the organisation of production and reproduction and the power relations, which characterise them, are not confined in ‘national compartments’, but ‘linked to a world order that bears directly on them, as well as influencing them through their national state’ (Cox 1987: 7). The interconnection between the organisation of production in advanced capitalist countries and non-capitalist social formations constitutes one of the major focuses of theorisation in critical political economy by Marx and his followers. The theorisation in this area has yielded fascinating and penetrative insights into the vicissitudes of the political economy of Africa, a non-capitalist region with a long, long history of interconnections with the economies of the advanced capitalist countries. (Neo)classical political economists like Adam Smith believe that the ‘development of trade and the division of labour unfailingly bring about economic development’ (Brenner 1977: 27) to non-­capitalist regions like Africa, with a great potential of transforming their economies into industrialised ones similar to the advanced capitalist economies. While Marx

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and his followers analysed and illustrated the worldwide tendency of the movement of capital, they demonstrate clearly that the mobility of capital to non-­ capitalist regions such as Africa served the accumulative imperative of capitalism in the advanced capitalist countries. Servicing of the accumulative imperative of capitalism can take several ways, including the channelling of the inherent crises of the capitalist mode of production to these peripheral regions or simply exploiting much-needed resources there to service their economic system. True, Marx and his followers were concerned to demonstrate that despite the specificity of the capitalist mode of production in the core capitalist countries, capital accumulates on a world scale (Sweezy 1970). Karl Marx was at pains all the time to show that, despite the uniqueness of the capitalist mode of production in the advanced capitalist countries, its mechanisms and dynamics were planetary in thrust and scope. Marx envisaged ‘a continual displacement and transformation of social relations on a world scale’, hence his reference to capital breaking down of the Chinese walls (Albo 2005: 65). He also asserted the ‘universalizing tendency of capital’, the ‘annihilation of space by time’, and the deterritorialising properties of commodity exchange (Rosenberg 2005: 12). Yet, Marx and his followers were cautious not to present the banal picture that the global tendencies of advanced capitalism in the core capitalist countries were necessarily developmental. On the contrary, they illustrate that, though global from its birth to advancement, the mobility of mature capitalism to the non-capitalist regions only does not transform their economies along the pattern of development in the core countries. This mobility may actually be imperialist and draw these regions behind in development. Marx illustrates the global nature of the capitalist mode of production from its birth in the core capitalist country through his theory of primitive accumulation. The birth of capitalism in the core capitalist countries, Marx illustrates, was socially cataclysmic and violent. In the cradle of capitalism, England, the processes of primitive accumulation by which capitalism was born involved forcible expropriation of the agricultural population: the burning, clearance, and destructions of their cottages/villages; and the enclosures and the theft of common land between fifteenth and eighteenth century. However, Marx also pointed out that the violence of primitive accumulation was not confined to England and the other core capitalist countries. He noted, for example, that: [t]he discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalized the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. (Marx 1976: 915)

If, as Marx has noted, ‘capital comes dripping from head to toe, from every pore, with blood and dirt’ (Marx 1976: 926), history is very clear that some of this blood and dirt was ‘from the slaves who crossed the Atlantic, where their

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labour augmented the capital of plantation owners and textile, tobacco and sugar manufacturers’ (Moore 2004: 96). Yet, history is also clear that Africa has not replicated capitalist development as we know it in the core capitalist countries. Indeed, Africa and other peripheral capitalist regions have continued to serve the accumulation imperative of advanced capitalism—several years after it has been born. Primitive accumulation, as far as these peripheral regions are concerned, has continued to the present twenty-first century. In the case of Africa, this has not just continued through the late colonialism of the region, a region which, as late as 1875, ‘had less than 10 per cent under outside domination’ (Sweezy 1970: 302) but was petitioned and shared among the core capitalists during the Berlin conference of 1884–1885. After which the continent was rapidly and formally colonised, and since then till today, in 2018, the articulation of the economies of countries in the continent with the economies of the core capitalist countries has continued to serve the accumulation imperative of capitalism in the latter without transforming the former to industrialised economies of scale and scope (Amin 2014).

Nkrumah’s Contribution to the Political Economy of Africa Nkrumah’s contribution to the political economy of Africa, to recap a point made earlier on, is in the critical strand of political economy described later in the above section, rather than the mainstream or classical political economy discussed earlier. The schema of Marx’s political economy summarised above has been drawn on by renowned scholars to analyse African political economy. A few names are worth mentioning to illustrate this assertion. The late Samir Amin is the most prolific and scintillating on this front, with numerous articles and books to his credit, theorising the global sweep of capitalist accumulation and its exploitative and anti-developmental consequences for African political economy, including his seminal article in the maiden volume of Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE; Amin 1974a; see also Amin 1973, 1974b, 1977, 1978, 2014). The other influential works worth mentioning are the plethora of literature on African political economy written in the pages of the ROAPE; Giovanni Arrighi and John S. Saul’s Essays on the Political Economy of Africa (Arrighi and Saul 1973); Timothy Shaw’s Towards a Political Economy for Africa (Shaw 1984); Patrick Bond’s Looting of Africa (Bond 2006); Branwen Gruffydd Jones’ Explaining Global Poverty (Jones 2006); and Issa Shivji’s Accumulation in an African Periphery (Shivji 2009). Though relatively invisible to the academic community, we believe that Nkrumah’s work deserves equal recognition as those aforementioned. He made major contributions to critical political economy by drawing on, building on, and advancing Marx’s analyses of capitalism by applying his concepts and analytical insights to non-capitalist formations as those in Africa. Similar to the

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works mentioned above—and antedating them—Nkrumah sought to illustrate the imperialist and exploitative dynamics of the forces of global capitalism, drawing on the theoretical insights of Marx delineated in the preceding section. Nkrumah expressed these thoughts in a theoretically powerful and empirically rich form in his NTLI. Indeed, he presented them earlier (and in activist or action form) in his autobiography, Ghana (Nkrumah 1957) and later, in such schematic texts as his Towards Colonial Freedom (Nkrumah 1962; henceforth TCF); Consciencism (Nkrumah 1964); Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare (Nkrumah 1968); Class Struggle in Africa (Nkrumah 1970); and Revolutionary Path (Nkrumah 1973). The theoretical and political value that Nkrumah’s works add to Marxian political economy is his explanation of why the capitalist mode of production is global in thrust and scope, why and how this mode of production connected to the economies of regions like Africa which are outside the heartlands of capitalism, and why and how this connection is the main cause of underdevelopment in Africa and other regions peripheral to the heartland of capitalism. Nkrumah’s scholarly works remain in the shadows of the titans of critical IPE such as Rosa Luxemburg, Nikolai Bukharin, Vladimir Lenin, Paul Sweezy, Immanuel Wallerstein, Terence Hopkins, Giovanni Arrighi, Andre Gunder Frank, and Samir Amin. However, his understanding and analyses of capitalism as a global, historical, and political-economic phenomenon are strikingly similar to these scholars in the way he draws on Marx’s schema of political economy to clarify the relationship between African economy and the capitalist global economy. Nkrumah’s ontology of capitalism and the capitalist economy was world systemic: a ‘capitalist world-economy’ in the conceptualisation of Immanuel Wallerstein and Terence Hopkins (see Wallerstein 1973, 1979; Hopskin 1982; Hopskin and Wallerstein 1986). Though the capitalist mode of production and capitalism emerged and advanced in the core capitalist countries such as UK, Germany, USA, France, and others, it has established itself as a global system, bringing all regions of the world, both capitalist and non-­ capitalist, into its orbit of organisation of production and the making of surplus value. Central to the organisation of the capitalist mode of production on a global scale, Nkrumah argues, is the exploitative relationship between the core of the system (inhabited by the advanced capitalist countries aforementioned) and the periphery (inhabited yet underdeveloped regions such as Africa). The capitalist world economy, according to Nkrumah, is controlled by powerful forces such as the imperialist states of the core capitalist countries and a world market that, far from giving comparative advantage to all countries, is structured (and works) to reinforce the exploitation of Africa by imperialist countries and their home capitals. Nkrumah viewed capitalism to be monopolistic, rather than driven by competitive advantage and market competition. He consistently referred to capitalism as ‘monopoly-capitalism’, characterised and driven by combines and multinational corporations (MNCs) which operate in various sectors of the economy of Africa, particularly mining and other extractive industries. As if he read Sweezy’s (1942: 254) chapter, The Development of

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Monopoly Capital, Nkrumah noted that monopoly capitalism was enacted ‘by means of mergers, amalgamations, patent agreements, selling arrangements, production quotas, price fixing and a variety of other common contrivances…’ (Nkrumah 1965: 37). Finance capital, itself characterised by combines and cartels, Nkrumah observed, was also a veritable vector of monopoly capital. Hilferding was the first to theorise monopoly capital, using finance capital to demonstrate the central role money and banks play in this form of capitalism (see Brewer 1990: Ch. 5). Nkrumah sought to demonstrate this role in the imperialist exploitation of Africa by monopoly capital. He wrote about the role of big banks in colonialism and neocolonialism, demonstrating the way they provide the money needed by other MNCs to exploit the natural resources of Africa: Under the necessity of seeking greater and greater capital sums for geological explorations and the opening up of new fields of extractive materials, international finance was called to the aid of the national finance of the respective imperialist countries. This process was stimulated by the fact that the national financial monopolies had already proceeded to the stage of international alliance with the onset of imperialism, a process that has manifoldly quickened in the present epoch of rising nationalism and socialism. (Nkrumah 1965: 50)

Illustrative of his sophisticated reasoning, he was quick to point out that this did not mean that there was no competition at all. There was, because of the inherent competitive nature of capitalism, ‘rooted in the principle of production for private gain and unequal development of capitalism, the struggles of the monopolies went on within the international combinations’ (1965: 37). Emerging from Nkrumah’s depth and profound understanding of the capitalist world economy and monopoly capitalism were his radical theories of colonialism and neocolonialism, and why a revolution against them is a must for Africa if its people were ever to improve the quality of their lives. Enter his theory and political stance on colonialism and neocolonialism. He devoted TCF and NTLI to conceptualising and theorising imperialism, colonialism, and neocolonialism, delineating their dynamics, machinations, the harm they cause to the economies of Africa, and why and how they may be fought and ultimately overthrown. Precisely because of the unique logic of capitalist accumulation, Nkrumah, similar to other Marxian theorists of imperialism (see Brewer 1990), argues that Africa was colonised because of its natural resources and the avenues for profitable investment it provides for monopoly capitalism. For these reasons, Africa will continue to be under colonialism even after independence. Conceptualising colonialism, he wrote: The aim of all colonial governments in Africa and elsewhere has been the struggle for raw materials; and not only this, but the colonies have become the dumping ground, and colonial peoples the false recipients, of manufactured goods of the industrialist and capitalist of Great Britain, France, Belgium, and other colonial

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powers who turn the dependent territories which feed their industrial plants. This is colonialism in a nutshell. (Nkrumah 1962: xv)

Colonialism, according to Nkrumah, is one of the mechanisms of imperialism, a political and military system whereby disparate polities are brought under the empire state mainly for economic exploitation. In the case of the colonialisation of Africa, three forms of exploitative imperatives drive imperialism: (1) access to the raw materials; (2) market for the sale manufactures from the metropolitan countries; and (3) investment of surplus capital in the colonies by capitalist from the metropolitan country (Nkrumah 1962: 3). Thus, raw materials, market, and finance (RMF) are the drivers of colonialism and neo-­ colonialism in Africa. Of all the RMF drivers, Nkrumah discussed the first (raw materials exploitation) in more detail, illustrating the paradox of resource wealth in Africa. He starts chapter one of NTLI describing this paradox: ‘Africa is a paradox which illustrates and highlights neo-colonialism. Her earth is rich, yet the products that come from above and below her soil continue to enrich, not Africans predominantly, but groups and individuals who operate to Africa’s impoverishment’ (Nkrumah 1965: 1). He provides facts on the natural resources Africa is endowed with, ranging from iron, coal, and water to bauxite, manganese, copper, zinc, and cotton, arguing that if ‘Africa’s multiple resources were used for her own development, they could have placed her among the modernised continents of the world’ (Nkrumah 1965: 2). Unfortunately, they have rather been used, he argues, to promote the interests of the imperialist countries. Once advanced capitalism is alive and well in the metropolitan countries, Nkrumah argued, the RMF drivers of imperialism will forever remain in Africa unless Africans and their leaders embark on a revolutionary struggle to overthrow imperialism in all its stripes and machinations. Drawing on Lenin’s assertion that imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism, Nkrumah noted that neo-colonialism is the last stage of imperialism. Nkrumah reasoned that classical colonialism was meant to mould the economies of the colonies to the service of the economic interests of the metropolitan countries. After this has been done, an effective system has to be put in place to keep the colonies perpetually in an exploitative relationship with their colonial masters. After the Second World War—when crude imperialism was no longer tenable for strategic and historical reasons—the imperial powers devised a mechanism which will still leave intact their former colonies as avenues for RMF. Colonialism as the main instrument of imperialism was replaced with neo-colonialism, the new form of imperialism in the nominally independent African states. Neo-colonialism, as Nkrumah correctly noted, is worse than classical colonialism because, ‘[f]or those who practise it, it means power without responsibility and for those who suffer from it, it means exploitation without redress’ (Nkrumah 1965, p. xi). ‘The neo-colonialism of today’, Nkrumah writes in the opening sentence of his NTLI, ‘represents imperialism in its final and perhaps its most dangerous

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stage’ (1965: ix). He then underlines the definitive characteristics of neo-­ colonialism while stressing its underlying logic: The essence of neocolonialism is that the state which is subject to it is, in theory independent and has all the outward trappings of international sovereignty. In reality its economic system and political policy is directed from outside…neo-­ colonialist control is exercised through economic or monetary means. The neo-­ colonial State may be obliged to take manufactured products of the imperialist power to the exclusion of competing products from elsewhere. (Nkrumah 1965: ix)

Drawing linkages between monopoly capitalism and neo-colonialism in Africa, he writes: Colonialism has achieved a new guise. It has become neo-colonialism, the last stage of imperialism; its final bid for existence, as monopoly-capitalism or imperialism, is the last stage of capitalism. And neo-colonialism is fast entrenching itself within the body of Africa today as a consortia and monopoly combinations that are the carpet-baggers of the African revolt against colonialism and the urge for continental unity. (Nkrumah 1965: 31)

With his critical IPE lenses, Nkrumah scratched below the surface of a world market that provides comparative advantage to Africa to illuminate the true purpose it served in the capitalist world economy. It serves to keep Africa in a dependent and exploitative relationship with the core capitalist countries, where Africa will continue to supply low-value raw materials in exchange for high-value manufactured goods from the core capitalist countries. It is through such an exploitative exchange relationship that Africa will continue to remain as an underdeveloped continent in perpetuity, serving as a quarry of raw materials for the core capitalist states to draw to feed their industries, and to continue to advance their industrialisation and economies of scale, with all the positive spillover effects on the high quality of life of their citizens. For Nkrumah, it is obvious to even a day’s old baby that Africa can never develop trading in a world market under these terms. He persuasively argued this thesis with many credible pieces of evidence across the continent where raw materials are extracted from countries in Africa to the core capitalist countries to manufacture goods that are then sold back to Africa at highly exorbitant prices. He writes: ‘When the countries of their origin are obliged to buy back their minerals and other raw products in the form of finished goods, they do so at greatly inflated prices’ (Nkrumah 1965: 14). Uninitiated into critical political economy, most of the present crop of African leaders embrace the Western advanced capitalist countries and international organisations, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, as their development partners. So, they welcome with open arms their policy prescriptions and economic advisers. This is not the case for Nkrumah, a scholar of critical political economy. Nkrumah dealt with them as forces of imperialism. He saw ahead of time that these countries and the

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i­nternational organisations they controlled were part of the global governance architecture of the capitalist global economy. For this reason, he rejected outright any actions suggesting that these countries and institutions wanted to help Africa to develop. Nkrumah correctly reasoned that development aid under the existing structure and dynamics of the capitalist world economy and market—where Africa continues to produce and trade in raw materials—was merely a tiny fraction of the wealth accumulated from Africa. Furthermore, it was not given as “free lunch”, but as one of the neo-colonial strategies of buying out African leaders to obtain favourable conditions for meeting the three goals of colonialism and neo-colonialism: RMF. Using French aid to its former colonies, Nkrumah noted that the main goal was to secure the exploitative terms of trade where the aid given to these colonies ties them to these exploitative terms of trade (Nkrumah 1965: 17–18). For Nkrumah, “conditionalities” tied to development aid, as those imposed on and complied by most African states under the neoliberal world order in return for loans and grants, are part of the strategies in the neo-colonialist governing arsenal. ‘Control over government policy in the neo-colonial State’, he noted presciently: may be secured by payments toward the cost of running the State, by provision of civil servants in positions where they can dictate policy, and by monetary control over foreign exchange through the imposition of a banking system controlled by the imperial power. (Nkrumah 1965: x)

Nkrumah’s class analysis within Africa and internationally was revealing and fascinating. While paying attention to the predominant non-capitalist modes of production in Africa, he dispelled the notion that class divisions and conflicts in Africa were any less non-materialist as they are in the places of advanced capitalism. ‘A fierce class struggle has been raging in Africa. The evidence is all around us. In essence, it is, as in the rest of the world, a struggle between the oppressors and the oppressed’ (Nkrumah 1970: 10). He identified two main classes, spawned by and linked to colonialism and neo-colonialism. There is the privileged class made of the bureaucratic bourgeoisie, officers of the armed forces and police, the intelligentsia, professional class, and the comprador. The other distinct class is the oppressed class, made of workers, peasants, small farmers, and traders. With his sophisticated understanding of the planetary mode of production of capitalism, as well as its global dynamics of accumulation and politics, Nkrumah linked these classes to colonialism and neo-colonialism: the modes by which capitalism organises production and accumulation of wealthy in Africa. Regarding the class interests of fractions of the privileged class, he argues, for example, that the basic interests of the African bourgeoisie ‘lies in preserving capitalist social and economic structures. It is therefore in alliance with international monopoly finance capital and neocolonialism…’ (Nkrumah 1970: 10–11). The interest of this class, Nkrumah argues, is in direct conflict with the interests of the oppressed class. The latter has been exploited by

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c­ olonialism and neo-colonialism and will seek to overthrow these systems of exploitation. The post-colonial states were controlled by the privileged class in the service of neo-colonialism. ‘At the end of the colonial period’, he observes, ‘there was in most African states a highly developed state machine and a veneer of Parliamentary democracy concealing a coercive state run by an elite of bureaucrats with practically unlimited power’ (1970: 15–16). These bureaucrats, including the army and the police, were instruments in the hands of the forces of neo-colonialism, used to protect and promote the interests of imperialism, and for that matter, global capitalist accumulation in Africa. Nkrumah’s understanding and analyses of the global characteristics and outlook of the African bourgeoisie class and the role of the post-colonial African state preceded, even presaged, neo-Gramscian IPE theories and concepts such as ‘transnational historical bloc’, ‘hegemony’, ‘transnational class’, and ‘internationalisation’ or ‘transnationalisation’ of the state. Stephen Gill’s use of these concepts to analyse the dynamics of capitalist world order under neoliberal globalisation will suffice to illustrate the assertion just made. According to him, the transnational capitalist classes ‘comprise the segments of the national bourgeoisie and state bureaucracies of a range of countries who have material interests in the relatively free flow of capital, goods and services within the world economy (2008: 93). Gill sees this class to be the ‘core of an emerging ‘transnational historical bloc’ which sees its material interests to be realizable in the ‘transnationalization of the global political economy’. Its key members include the top owners and managers of transnational corporations, central and international bankers, some leading politicians and bureaucrats of the core capitalist countries, and also ‘those in some Third World countries’ (2008: 93). Clearly, there is no difference between what Gill, a renowned IPE scholar of the critical stream, was saying in the 2000s, and what Nkrumah, an invisible scholar of the same field, was saying in the 1970s. The present looting of the natural resources of Africa in the twenty-first century by foreign mining and oil companies, literally with the complicity of many African leaders, can only be made intelligible with Nkrumah’s analysis of class, advanced by neo-Gramscian IPE scholars like Robert Cox and Stephen Gill. Any critical political-economic analysis or theorisation worth calling so must, at the very minimal, muse about the possibility of a revolution against the established structures of domination by capitalism. Nkrumah’s political-­ economic analysis of the political economy of Africa during and post-colonial periods was founded on and shaped by the ultimate overthrow of colonialism and neo-colonialism. The political message running through Nkrumah’s works is stated clearly in NTLI: ‘The less developed world will never become developed through the good will or generosity of the developed powers. It can only become developed through a struggle against the external forces which have a vested interest in keeping it undeveloped’ (Nkrumah 1965: xx). Committed to this revolutionary agenda, Nkrumah wrote a book about it in Africa, addressing such questions as: who is the target of the revolution? How is it to be

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waged? By whom? What alternative order should replace capitalism? (Nkrumah 1968). On the question of the target of the revolution, Nkrumah pointed to ‘international finance capital under its external and internal forms of exploitation, imperialism, and capitalism’ as the enemy in both the colonial territories and the metropolitan states (1968: 3). After a detailed description of this enemy and its modus operandi, he argued that an armed revolt must be mounted against it wherever it is found in Africa. Socialism, as is to be expected, is the alternative Nkrumah proposed to replace capitalism. Nkrumah’s political economy, both in theory and praxis, pivoted on one fundamental assumption: the capitalist global economy is organised, structured, and operated on doctrines, policies, and power relations designed to exploit rather than develop Africa. In simple terms, it is imperialist through and through. In the twenty-first century, the issues that constituted the focus of Nkrumah’s political economy have spawned a plethora of literature. The ROAPE and scholars like Samir Amin, Giovanni Arrighi, David Harvey, Patrick Bond, Paul Cammack, Robert Biel, and Branwen Gruffydd Jones have published and written many influential articles and books on them (see, e.g. Amin 1990; Biel 2000; Arrighi 2002; Cammack 2002, 2003, 2014; Harvey 2003; Bond 2003, 2006). Nkrumah is not known, as these scholars are, in the field of Marxian IPE. However, long before the ROAPE was set up, Nkrumah had already addressed some of the issues it dedicated itself to doing, theoretically and politically. In the words of one of its founding members, the ROAPE was set up ‘to understand Africa in order to change it’ (Williams 2004: 572): precisely the task Nkrumah set for himself in his works, which unfortunately are not visible as the works of these scholars are.

Nkrumah Acts on His Ideas of Political Economy Nkrumah did not just theorise political economy; he acted on his ideas. He lived his theoretical work on the political economy of Africa, putting his theory into practice as he tried to develop his country and to promote the well-being of his people. Indeed, he tried to do this just not in Ghana, but in Africa in general. First of all, and in line with his revolutionary perspective of African political economy—that to develop Africa must break the chains of colonialism and neo-colonialism—he led a radical, but strategic, struggle against colonialism in the Gold Coast, obtaining independence for Ghana on 6 March 1957. Believing that it is only with the total liberation of the whole continent from imperialism and the unity of all its people that Africa can develop, he dedicated himself to fighting for the liberation of all African countries, which were still under colonialism after Ghana had attained its independence. After independence, Nkrumah designed and implemented a massive industrialisation plan, informed by his insights about the exploitative terms on which the African economy is integrated into capitalist world economy as summarised above. Consequently, Ghana’s first Republic under Nkrumah saw attempts at laying foundations for accelerated economic development through socialist

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and centralised planning economic policies. A wide range of welfare and people-­centred policies, including universal free education, expansion in educational and health facilities, and low cost or affordable housing schemes were introduced. In terms of access to education and health care, the Nkrumah government did better than any other post-independence government. For instance, the number of primary schools increased from 1083 in 1951 to over 8000 by 1966. Ghana also became the first country in the developing world to attain universal and compulsory free basic education by 1961 (see Mawuko-­ Yevugah 2009, 2016). As suggested by Dzorgbo, the poor legacy of colonialism at holistic development meant the commitment of huge financial resources by the Nkrumah government into long-term infrastructure and human development. This resulted in the construction of a number of new secondary schools, teacher training colleges, post-secondary institutions such as the University of Cape Coast (UCC) and the Kumasi College of Technology (now Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology), and the School of Administration at the University of Ghana. In economic development, the Nkrumah government also implemented a rather ambitious expansionary industrialisation programme, which culminated in the opening up of numerous state-owned enterprises (SOEs). The building of the multi-million Akosombo hydroelectric dam, the Tema Industrial Township and Motorway as well as the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) were aimed at laying the grounds for the country’s industrial take-off. These achievements are summarised by Dzorgbo as follows: The period of from 1951 to 1966 (when Nkrumah became Leader of Government Business under British rule to when he was toppled) was epochal for the breathless attempts made by Nkrumah and the CPP regime to develop Ghana and restructure socioeconomic processes through a rapid and comprehensive industrialization program in order to create a socialist society…the CPP regime took the development of Ghana very seriously. Its achievements are unparalleled so far for Ghana’s postcolonial development history, and contrasts sharply with the underdevelopment of the immediate colonial past, showing the extent to which, the colonial authorities had deprived Ghana of socioeconomic development. (Dzorgbo 2001: 184–185)

Overall, Nkrumah’s aggressive socialist policies are said to have made basic services and necessities accessible to the majority of the people and laid the foundation for long-term growth through unprecedented levels of investment in education, health care, electrical power, and road networks. No doubt, Nkrumah’s industrialisation programme was certainly grandiose and overambitions, but by no means a wrong strategy of development. Unsurprisingly, the programme was subjected to severe criticisms by mainstream political economists like Tony Killick (see Killick 1978, 2010). Yet, history has proven Nkrumah right, and fast forward to the 2000s—over forty years after he was overthrown by forces of neo-colonialism—state-led

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industrialisation has returned as the reigning development paradigm in Ghana. In January 2017, Nana Akufo-Addo assumed office as the fourth president of the Fourth Republic, having defeated the incumbent John Mahama in the 2016 general elections. Akufo-Addo’s political grouping, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), traced its political and ideological ancestry to the liberal and centre-right political tradition of Ghanaian politics. This tradition, which was diametrically opposed to Nkrumah’s ideas and policies in the 1950s and 1960s, has never shied from espousing liberal and market-oriented ideas and policies akin to neoclassical ideas discussed earlier. It is therefore a huge ideological climbdown that the present Akufo-Addo-­ led liberal government that should normally be implementing market-led socio-economic and industrialisation policies but is rather championing policies which mimic Nkrumah’s vision. The Akufo-Addo government’s flagship policies promoted during the presidential campaign and which have now become basis of the government agenda’s include country-wide free Senior High School (Free SHS) education, One District One Factory (1D1F), One Village One Dam, One Constituency One Million Dollars, Planting for Food and Jobs, Inner Cities and Zongo Development Fund, and Savanna and Coastal Development Authorities. During his maiden State of the Nation to parliament in February 2017, President Akufo-Addo summed up his vision as follows: …to establish at least one industrial enterprise in each of the 216 Districts in the “One District, One Factory” policy development of strategic anchor initiatives as new pillars of growth for the Ghanaian economy, including the establishment of petrochemical industries; an iron and steel industry; an integrated aluminum industry; the expansion of the domestic production of pharmaceuticals; the establishment of a vehicle assembly and automotive industry; the production of industrial salt; the establishment of garment and textile enterprises; and the manufacture of machinery, equipment and component parts; establishment of a multi-purpose industrial park in each of the ten regions….. (Myjoyonline.com 2017)

The above policy outlined by an ostensibly liberal-leaning government is contrary to the market-oriented capitalist ideas of their political forebears who were opposed to Nkrumah’s socialist agenda and developmental blueprint for Ghana and other newly independent African states. In particular, we refer to Dr Joseph Boakye (JB) Danquah, who is widely seen as the founding father of the liberal tradition in Ghana’s political history, and who was, incidentally, the maternal uncle of the current Ghanaian president. At the heart of the liberal ideas espoused by Danquah and his peers in opposition to Nkrumah was the concept of ‘property owning democracy’, which among other things, places the individual at the centre of economic activity and allows the private sector to engineer the drive towards industrial transformation. Thus, Danquah in the lead up to Ghana’s independence in 1957 as the head of the political opposition to Nkrumah envisioned a different path based on market-led liberal ideas discussed earlier. While Nkrumah’s

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socialist ideas became old-fashioned and unpopular in Ghana from the 1980s due to the intensification and hegemony of neoliberal ideas and policies, the current Akufo-Addo government, in both its policy pronouncements and actions, seems to be repackaging Nkrumah’s state-led ideas and policies as the preferred option for Ghana at this historical juncture, particularly in the wake of the crisis of liberal ideas and policies everywhere. From the foregoing, it is clear that Nkrumah’s state-led transformational ideas and policy prescriptions have stood the test of time, becoming the blueprints for the current leaders, including his fierce critics and political and ideological opponents. Thus, Nkrumah’s political economy of Africa and his relentless commitment to the revolutionary struggle against imperialism marked him out as a rare species as a Ghanaian (even African) critical scholar-­ cum-­political leader. This is particularly so in the last four decades of neoliberal hegemony, when African leaders hardly mention the ICN words (imperialism, colonialism, and neo-colonialism).

Concluding Remarks Our chapter has laid out the distinct theoretical and political doctrines of mainstream political and critical political economy, and based on this, we associate Nkrumah with the latter strand of political economy, and then summarised his thoughts on African political economy. What we have succeeded in doing, hopefully, is drawing attention to Nkrumah’s political economy of Africa and to provide readers a collage of the critical analytical and political tools they offer to leverage our understanding of the current political economy of Africa. We have not even attempted an annotated survey of his vast body of work, let alone do justice to the whole corpus by way of extensive review. However, we hope we have pointed to the nuggets of critical political economy buried in Nkrumah’s works for interested readers to explore for a better understanding of African political economy and to advance critical scholarship in Africa by drawing on his ideas in future research.

References Albelda, R., C.  Gunn, and W.  Waller. 1987. Alternatives to Economic Orthodoxy: A Reader in Political Economy. New York: M. E. Sharpe Inc. Albo, G. 2005. Contesting the ‘New Capitalism’. In Varieties of Capitalism, Varieties of Approaches, ed. D. Coates. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Amin, S. 1973. Neocolonialism in West Africa. New York: Monthly Review Press. ———. 1974a. Accumulation and Development: A Theoretical Model. Review of African Political Economy 1: 9–26. ———. 1974b. Accumulation on a World Scale: A Critique of the Theory of Underdevelopment, Vol One. New York: Monthly Review Press. ———. 1977. Imperialism and Unequal Development. New York: Monthly Review Press.

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———. 1978. The Law of Value and Historical Materialism. New  York: Monthly Review Press. ———. 1990. Maldevelopment: Anatomy of a Global Failure. Tokyo: United Nations University Press. ———. 2014. Understanding the Political Economy of Contemporary Africa. African Development XXXIX (1): 15–36. Arrighi, G. 2002. The African Crisis: World Systemic and Regional Aspects. New Left Review 15 (May/June): 5–36. Arrighi, G., and J.S. Saul. 1973. Essays on the Political Economy of Africa. New York: Monthly Review Press. Biel, R. 2000. The New Imperialism: Crisis and Contradictions in North-South Relations. London/New York: Zed Books. Bond, P. 2003. Against Global Apartheid: South Africa Meets the World Bank, IMF and International Finance. Cape Town: University of Cape Town. ———. 2006. Looting of Africa: The Economics of Exploitation. London: Zed Books. Brenner, R. 1977. The Origins of Capitalist Development: A Critique of Neo-Smithian Marxism. New Left Review 1 (104): 25–92. Brewer, A. 1990. Marxist Theories of Imperialism: A Critical Survey. 2nd ed. London/ New York: Routledge. Cammack, P. 2002. Attacking the Poor. New Left Review 13: 125–134. ———. 2003. The Governance of Global Capitalism: A New Materialist Perspective. Historical Materialism 11 (2): 37–59. ———. 2014. World Development Report 2015: Programming the Poor. Working Paper 7, Southeast Asia Research Centre. Caporaso, J.A., and D.P.  Levine. 1992. Theories of Political Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cohen, G.A. 2000. Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defence. Expanded ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Cox, R.W. 1987. Production, Power, and World Order: Social Forces in the Making of History. New York: Columbia University Press. Dzorgbo, D. 2001. Ghana in Search of Development: The Challenge of Governance, Economic Management and Institution Building. England: Ashgate Publishing Ltd. Esping-Andersen, G. 1990. The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Fine, B., and A. Saad-Filho. 2004. Marx’s Capital. 4th ed. London: Pluto Press. Gill, S. 2008. Power and Resistance in the New World Order. 2nd ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Harvey, D. 2003. The New Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2010. A Companion to Marx’s Capital. London: Verso. Hopkins, T.K. 1982. The Study of the Capitalist World-economy: Some Introductory Considerations. In World-systems Analysis: Theory and Methodology, ed. T.K. Hopkins and I. Wallerstein. London: Sage Publications. Hopkins, T.K., and I. Wallerstein. 1986. Commodity Chains in the World-Economy Prior to 1800. Review (Fernand Braudel Center) 10 (1): 157–170. Hunt, E.K., and M.  Lautzenheiser. 2011. History of Economic Thought: A Critical Perspective. 3ed ed. New York: M. E. Sharpe Armonk. Jones, B.J. 2006. Explaining Global Poverty: A Critical Realist Approach. London: Routledge.

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Killick, T. 1978, 2010. Development Economics in Action: A Study of Economic Policies in Ghana. London: Routledge. Marx, K. 1976. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy Vol. One. New  York: Penguin Books. ———. 1977. A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Moscow: Progress Publishers. Marx, K., and F.  Engels. 2002. The Communist Manifesto. New  York: Penguin Books Classics. Mawuko-Yevugah, L. 2009. Governing Through Developmentality: The Politics of Aid Reform and (Re)production of Power, Neoliberal and Neocolonial Interventions in Ghana. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Alberta, Canada. ———. 2016. Reinventing Development: Aid Reform and Technologies of Governance in Ghana. Abingdon: Routledge. Moore, D. 2004. The Second Age of the Third World: From Primitive Accumulation to Global Public Goods? Third World Quarterly 25 (1): 87–109. Myjoyonline.com. 2017. Full Text: President Akufo-Addo’s maiden State of Nation Address, 21 February, 2017. https://www.myjoyonline.com/politics/2017/ February-21st/full-text-president-akufo-addos-maiden-state-of-nation-address. php. Accessed 7 Dec 2018. Nitzan, J., and S.  Bichler. 2009. Capital as Power: A Study of Order and Creorder. Abingdon: Routledge. Nkrumah, K. 1957. Ghana: The Autobiography of Nkrumah. New York: International Publishers. ———. 1962. Towards Colonial Freedom. London: Heinemann. ———. 1964. Consciencism: Philosophy and Ideology for Decolonization and Development with Particular Reference to the African Revolution. London: Heinemann. ———. 1965. Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism. New York: International Publishers. ———. 1968. Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare: A Guide to the Armed Phase of the African Revolution. London: Panaf Books Limited. ———. 1970. Class Struggle in Africa. London: Panaf Books Limited. ———. 1973. Revolutionary Path. New York: International Publishers. Rosenberg, J. 2005. Globalization Theory: A Post Mortem. International Politics 42 (1): 2–74. Rupert, M., and H. Smith. 2002. Editors’ Introduction. In Historical Materialism and Globalization, ed. M. Rupert and H. Smith, 1–13. London: Routledge. Shaw, T.M. 1984. Towards a Political Economy for Africa. The Dialectics of Dependence. London: Macmillan Press Ltd. Shivji, I.G. 2009. Accumulation in an African Periphery: A Theoretical Framework. Oxford: African Books Collective. Sweezy, P.M. 1942. The Theory of Capitalist Development. New  York: Monthly Review Press. ———. 1970. The Theory of Capitalist Development: Principles of Marxian Political Economy. New York: Monthly Review Press. Wallerstein, I. 1973. Africa in a Capitalist World. African Issues 3 (3): 1–11. ———. 1979. The Capitalist World Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Williams, G. 2004. Political Economies & the Study of Africa: Critical Considerations. Review of African Political Economy 102: 571–583.

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Wolf, E.R. 1982. Europe and the People Without History. Berkeley: University of California Press. Wood, E.M. 1995. Democracy Against Capitalism: Renewing Historical Materialism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2002. The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View. London: Verso. ———. 2003. The Empire of Capital. London: Verso.

CHAPTER 10

Thomas Sankara and a Political Economy of Happiness Amber Murrey

Decolonizing projects have re-emerged with vigor in recent years. Rethinking the geopolitics of knowledge, challenging the universalization of Eurocentric frameworks and concepts, countering colonial “epistemicides” (from the Greek epistēmē/knowledge and the Latin cide/to kill, referring to the killing of knowledge through colonial or modernizing missions), and seeking out alternative thinking have been important parts of decolonization within and beyond the university (Bhambra et al. 2018; Chantiluke et al. 2018). At the center of such intellectual work have been a great number of significant questions, including the following: what knowledge systems do we draw upon to advance ideas for livable futures? What alternative political and epistemic imaginaries help us to craft the scaffolding for collective well-being? Within “global Africa” (Campbell 2019), political and intellectual projects have asserted the need to elaborate previously silenced, censured, or derided knowledge as not only significant and valid but also crucial and necessary to addressing these queries (Biney 2019; Falola and Jennings 2002; Nyamnjoh 2012, 2016; Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2013; Nokuthula 2018). The political philosophies practiced, embodied, and elaborated by Thomas Sankara offer one generative avenue of (re)imagining politics and the relationship between the state and its people (Murrey 2018b; Biney 2018). In the past several years, a substantial body of scholarship has engaged with aspects of Sankara’s biography, collective praxis, visions, assassination, and ­legacies, as well as the limitations, contradictions, and reinvention(s) of the revolution (Lalsaga 2012; Sylla 2012; Pondi 2016; Harsch 2014; Murrey 2018a; A. Murrey (*) School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK © The Author(s) 2020 S. O. Oloruntoba, T. Falola (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of African Political Economy, Palgrave Handbooks in IPE, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38922-2_10

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Ouedraogo 2018). A far greater number of popular and journalistic commentaries, op-eds, films, songs, and art installations have considered cultural and political features of Sankara and the 1983 revolution in Upper Volta/Burkina Faso. This chapter does not seek to reproduce or summarize this literature nor larger political corpus here. Rather, the focus of this chapter is to work from the wide-ranging and pluriversal political and socioeconomic imaginaries elaborated upon by Sankara (through his speeches and actions) to tease out his particular political economy as one  insistent upon building a society in which each person could work toward self-liberation and dignity. I consider some of the lessons learned from the implementation of these political philosophies during the revolution of August 1983 to October 1987. Finally, I conclude by sketching some of the ways in which contemporary pan-Africanists, decolonial thinkers, green socialists, and others have revived aspects of Sankara’s political economy of justice and “revolution [as] happiness.”

Revolutionary Infrastructure Thomas Isidore Noel Sankara (1949–1987) was one of the world’s most prominent pan-African socialist revolutionaries. He was a military captain and a president, an unapologetic anti-imperialist, a critic of patriarchy and a partner in the “total emancipation” of women, a formidable and often amusing orator, and a humble but resolved human committed to the co-creation of a more just world. In the early 1980s, he undertook a grounded, applied, and radical approach for the total transformation of the State for the well-being of the people of Burkina Faso.1 Sankara was also distinctive for his revolution’s—the August Revolution—successes, including achievements in food self-reliance, the importance given to ecological balance and reforestation, rapid infrastructural achievements, and advances in healthcare. Sankara worked to break from neocolonial models of development, from colonial knowledge systems, and from oppressive imperial capitalist economic relations. He imagined a world in which the political economic systems and infrastructures functioned for the well-being of the people, but also he put into place policies and projects that achieved tangible successes in well-being and happiness. Sankara sketched the ambitions of the revolution: Our revolution is, and should continue to be, the collective effort of revolutionaries to transform reality, to improve the concrete situation of the masses of our country. Our revolution will be worthwhile only if… the Burkinabè are… a little happier. Happier because they have clean water to drink, because they have abundant, sufficient food, because they’re in excellent health, because they have education, because they have decent housing, because they are better dressed, because they have the right to leisure, because they have enjoyed more freedom, more democracy, more dignity. Our revolution will have a reason to exist only if it can respond concretely to these questions. (Sankara, “Eight Million Revolutionaries,” 1987)2

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Sankara’s efforts at the transformation of state programs to ensure well-­being were founded upon the full participation of the people of Burkina. In his inauguration speech as prime minister on February 1, 1983, seven months before he would become president, he instructed his ministers: We must not fear the masses and barricade ourselves in air-conditioned offices to think deeply, with the heaviness of the petite bourgeoisie, without taking into account the concrete conditions of life and work… we must hold the people in respect, but reserve all the respect for the people.

There is no revolution without the organic and full participation from the people, he said, disavowing himself as a “revolutionary leader” (Sankara, “Power Must Be the Business of a Conscious People,” 1983). Sankara explained that he “guarded against making unity into a dry, paralyzing, sterilizing, monochromatic thing [and stressed that he was] open to… a manifold, varied, and enriching expression of many different ideas and diverse activities that are rich with a thousand nuances” (italics added, Sankara quoted in Harsch 2014, 139). Sankara was motivated by the idea of an enduring collaboration, one that drew from resources already available in Burkina. He declared: We swear, we proclaim, that from now on nothing in Burkina Faso will be done without the participation of the Burkinabè. Nothing that we have not first decided and worked out ourselves. There will be no further assaults on our sense of decency and our dignity. (“Freedom Must Be Conquered,” 1984)

In the four years and two months that Sankara was the president of Upper Volta/Burkina Faso, he urged people to collaborate on revolutionary projects of self-determination, often in the face of enormous international and domestic capitalist and neo-imperialist pressures. Sankara believed active participation to be central in the emancipation of people, for themselves, through their own labor. As a former military captain, Sankara recognized the mental and physical potentials of cultivating a determination and work ethic (this commitment to sacrifice and hard work was not uniformly well received, as is addressed below). Through this platform of collective work, the country embarked upon a series of “commando” campaigns, or rapid nationalist interventions, to resolve concrete and immediate challenges. Sankara explained: …we want you to come out in massive numbers to build… You are going to build in order to prove that you’re capable of transforming your existence and transforming the concrete conditions in which you live. You don’t need us to go looking for foreign financial backers, you only need us to give the people their freedom and their rights. (“Who Are the People’s Enemies?” 1983)

“Operation vaccination commando” was launched on November 25, 1984. The operation reached a world record by vaccinating 2.5 million children against measles, meningitis, and yellow fever in two weeks. It did so by priori-

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tizing the country’s most vulnerable children (Pondi 2016, Kindle location 1276). Although Burkina had been cautioned against the project by foreign institutions, it was eventually declared a great success, including because it was brought to fruition by the people’s own will and determination. The social welfare program went a long way toward ensuring the happiness that the revolution sought to achieve: “between 18,000 and 50,000 children who died annually of measles and meningitis lived” (Harsch 2014, 78). The “battle of the rails” project extended the country’s only railway line. At the time, the World Bank dismissed the extension as unprofitable. The extension was achieved through mass public labor by students, peasants, administrators, and everyday citizens who were summoned to join in Burkina’s self-actualization. The railway extension was planned to facilitate the mining of manganese. At the time, it was a considerable accomplishment, with de-­ vegetation and the laying of the track done by the people. Following Sankara’s assassination and the subsequent “rectification” of the revolution, the populist project was discontinued. In 1995, management of the rail was privatized to the consortium Sitirail, made up of the French Bolloré transportation company and the Danish Maersk shipping and logistics conglomerate. At present, the rails have never been joined in Tambao (the location of the region’s largest manganese deposit and one of the world’s richest cryptomelane ore reserves), and no train presently circulates on the line.3 Ambitious new housing infrastructure, such as Cité II and Cité III in Ouagadougou, provided quality housing for thousands of people living in informal settlements. From 1983 to 1985, 60,000 new parcels were created. The goals of the redevelopment program were diverse: to secure decent housing for every citizen, to stop property speculation, and to break feudal power structures and the monopoly of the rich on land property. Mobilizing all citizens by the elected “revolutionary committees” to improve their neighborhoods, redevelopment operations were also seen as a pedagogic tool for the transmission of a new morality. (Bervoets and Loopmans 2012, 65)

For Sankara, people’s active participation in the construction of such infrastructural projects deterred pessimism and the sense of powerlessness that were part of colonial hangover in Burkina. Other important strands of his international vision and thinking were Sankara’s calls for an end to aid dependency, his rejection of odious debt, his critique of the African ruling class, his commitment to women’s and peasant’s rights, his esteem for environmental sustainability and food justice, and his commitment to African empowerment and solidarity with marginalized and excluded peoples. He showed a seemingly quixotic flexibility in both reviving sustainable precolonial practices, like the communal sacred grove, and ­critiquing those cultural systems that fostered hierarchies and inequalities, like female circumcision and the dowry. He set forth a series of national and nationalist policies, including the “consume Burkinabè” campaign and the state support

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for the revived production and consumption of the Faso dan Fani (for a comprehensive list of the revolution’s concrete successes—e.g. numbers of schools, pharmacies, roads, communal wells, etc. built, sacred groves and trees replanted, tons of food cultivated, etc.—see Pondi 2016, Chapter 5). Offering an evaluation of the revolution’s project-based rapid intervention approach, Samir Amin (2007, n.p.) writes: Sankara was, in my opinion, right—at least theoretically—on the “economic and social development strategy” part… In a first step, it was necessary to think “small projects”, that is to say actions of rapid improvement of the conditions of production of the rural communities, as inexpensive as possible, the benefits of this improvement returning entirely to the concerned communities… motivated… by realism (what is possible immediately?) And by political sense (it is through this kind of operations that organization and democratization of rural life can be initiated). (Translated from French by author)

In a global political economy premised on exploitation, and an international development regime premised on “mere survival” (as Sankara called it), the Burkinabè people had been disallowed self-worth, pride, and as a consequence—as Sankara argued—happiness. Self-appreciation could be derived from working, creating, and building together. This was a central aspect of the revolutionary pedagogy for humanization. While certain policies lend themselves better to rapid-fire responses (e.g. infrastructure), education and literacy would inevitably necessitate more substantial time commitments. Another rapid social project, “alpha literacy commando” sought to teach reading and arithmetic in rural areas. These were important steps, but substantial and thoughtful (re)education of the people would require more than quick interventions. For this and other reasons (discussed below), Sankara’s enthusiastic calls for popular mobilization were not always well received.

Decolonizing Development and Happiness Drawing inspiration from the words of the anti-colonial resistance fighter Samori Touré (c. 1830–1900), Sankara declared that Ouagadougou would be the bolibana of imperialism, that is to say, the end of the race or the end of the road for imperialism. Critical to this bolibana of imperialism, Sankara envisioned a novel and transformative formula of “development” for Burkina Faso. Nine years after Sankara’s assassination, Claude Ake articulated a powerful thesis about the connections between politics, the state in Africa, and (under) development. These arguments echo some of Sankara’s declarations on international development in Africa before the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in 1983. Ake (1996, 1) writes: ...the assumption so readily made that there has been a failure of development is misleading. The problem is not so much that development has failed as that it was

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never really on the agenda in the first place. By all indications, political conditions in Africa are the greatest impediment to development… African politics has been constituted to prevent the pursuit of development and the emergence of relevant and effective development paradigms and programs.

Like Ake, Sankara recognized the “dual” political and economic function that development fulfilled in African societies: (1) to serve the interests of a small cadre of African elites and their international patrons and, simultaneously, (2) to propagate a sense of optimism about future well-being and modernizing potentials, thus distracting from imperial violence and capitalist exploitation. On the topic of international development, Sankara said that those who “have eyes to see” know the “terrible consequences of the devastation imposed by the so-called specialists in Third World development” (Sankara, “Freedom Must Be Conquered,” 1984). Ake (1996, 17) expounds on a similar set of ideas: …the ideology [of development] was shaped decisively by the essentially political interests of its proponents; hence its many ambiguities and contradictions… the paradigm was conveniently abstract. It paid little heed to historical specificity and treated the development process as something in no way connected to its cultural, institutional, and political context… this position was self-serving.

Sankara’s political philosophy directly challenged this “self-serving” tendency and added an additional factor to the understanding of the political consequences of international aid dependency—that is, the dual tendency to cultivate systemic reliance while squashing self-confidence in societies otherwise capable of uplift, societies like Burkina Faso. Development agendas originating from the West, for Sankara, were little more than “world[s] of slavery redone in the fashion of the day” (Sankara, “Freedom Must Be Conquered,” 1984). He rejected externally driven development agendas both for this tendency to obscure the violent economic and political relations of global capitalism, but also for the dependency and alienation fostered by such projects. In this, there was a violence embedded within international aid: (1) the essentialization of African peoples in which abstract development models are imposed unilaterally; (2) the epistemic violence effected through the displacing of Burkinabè knowledge systems by foreign epistemes; and (3) the poverty and hunger resulting from a system of international development that squashes local/national potential and remains quiet on the global capital system. For scholars of critical and anti-development studies, Sankara’s was an early and unwavering testimony of the fundamental epistemological violence of development projects. Sankara had a holistic understanding of these social, political, and economic relations. He explained to Jean-Philippe Rapp, “From imperialism’s point of view, it’s more important to dominate us culturally than militarily. Cultural

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domination is more flexible, more effective, less costly” (Sankara, interview with Jean-Philippe Rapp in 1985, cited  in Sankara 1988). At a rally in Ouagadougou in 1983 he said: Imperialism is everywhere. Through the culture that it spreads, through its misinformation, it gets us to think like it does, it gets us to submit to it, and to go along with all its maneuvers. (Sankara, “Who Are the People’s Enemies?” 1983)

Sankara situated international development within this matrix of cultural imperialism. Working against this system thus necessitated a complete refashioning of the culture of international development aid. Sankara discontinued the United States Peace Corps program in Burkina Faso in 1987. From the perspective of the US State Department, the Peace Corps was a “cultural transformation project… intended to mould curricula for the information of world citizens” (Peterson 2010, 230). Within the Cold War context, the ideological thrust of this “curricula” was to foster a worldview sympathetic to a culture of American capitalism. Sankara said: Aid must go in the direction of strengthening our sovereignty, not undermining it. Aid should go in the direction of destroying aid. All aid that kills aid is welcome in Burkina Faso. But we will be compelled to abandon all aid that creates a welfare mentality. (Sankara, “One Color: African Unity,” 125)

Sankara critiqued the African “professors, engineers, and economists” who studied in the universities of the West and returned to the continent with “vocabulary and ideas… from elsewhere” and became agents of imperialism, “content… with simply adding color” to imperial development agendas (Sankara “Freedom Must Be Conquered,” 1984). In order to achieve the end of imperialism, Sankara said: We have to work at decolonizing our mentality and achieving happiness within the limits of sacrifices we should be willing to accept. We have to recondition our people to accept themselves as they are, not to be ashamed of their real situation, to be satisfied with it, to glory in it, even. (Interview with Rapp 1985)

For Sankara, the cultural imperialism of aid and the antipathies it nurtured required decolonizing.

“Delinking” from Global Neo-imperial Capitalism Samir Amin (1991, 85) explains that the strategic objective of socialist pan-­ African revolutions, like that in Burkina, was a “delinking from the logic of worldwide capitalist expansion.” In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the global expansion of capitalism fostered a “peripheralization” of countries like Upper Volta/Burkina Faso, relegated within a global order to supplying unrefined natural resources to former colonial business interests and affording migrant,

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inexpensive labor (particularly to neighboring Côte d’Ivoire). When Sankara became president on August 4, 1983, the political economy of Upper Volta was exhausted by this peripheralization. Sankara described the state of the country in his 1984 speech at the UN General Assembly: …7 million inhabitants, with over 6 million peasants; an infant mortality rate estimated at 180 per 1,000; an average life expectancy limited to 40 years; an illiteracy rate of up to 98 percent, if we describe as literate anyone who can read, write, and speak a language; 1 doctor for 50,000 inhabitants; 16 percent of school aged youth attending school; and finally, a per capita Gross Domestic Product of 53,356 CFA francs, or barely more than 100 US dollars… The root of the problem was political. The solution clearly needed to be political. (Sankara, “Freedom Must Be Conquered,” 1984)

Sankara envisioned a political solution founded upon a refusal of neo-imperial global capitalism, in which the peripheralization of Burkina Faso was produced. However, he knew the economic marginalization of Burkina was financially lucrative for global elites and that, therefore, challenging the established global economic status quo would be dangerous. Amin (2007, n.p.) describes Sankara as “truly feminist, insisting on the importance of the upheaval of morals in favour of the equality of the sexes— which is very rare among the ‘great men.’” More recently, Ama Biney (2018, 128) argues that Sankara’s holistic political praxis “was the embodiment of a new paradigm of social, political, economic and ecological justice.” Sankara’s wide-ranging intellectual proficiencies and political practices challenged conventional models of political economic analysis, integrating history, identity, gender, and what we might call “colonial difference.” This revolutionary paradigm, Biney (2018, 129) writes, is an unfinished struggle not only for the fact that he was assassinated in the prime of his life, but in that the existing neoliberal capitalist order and neo-colonialism have reconfigured new forms of “coloniality” or domination in the forms and spheres of the economy, knowledge, the environment and the control over women’s bodies in reproductive health in a global phallocentric gendered dispensation.

In his 1983 Political Orientation Speech, the emancipation of women was second on the list of national priorities. Sankara said of inequalities between men and women: Given this cycle of violence, inequality can be done away with only by establishing a new society, where men and women enjoy equal rights, resulting from an upheaval in the means of production as well as in all social relations. That is, women’s lot will improve only with the elimination of the system that exploits them… it is not surprising that in its ascending phase the capitalist system, for which human beings are just so many numbers, should be the economic system

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that has exploited women the most cynically and with the most sophistication. (Sankara, “The Emancipation of Women,” 1987).

In practice, though, the government encountered difficulties and resistances in the implementation of the bans on polygamy and female circumcision. Polygamy in rural areas had more than cultural or social meaning but was also a means of managing and dividing essential household labor. For women, polygamy “freed [some women] from daily routine work,” while some women “felt that circumcision [was] an essential part of their female identity” (Diallo 2019, 275). In this and other aspects of endeavors for revolutionary change, Sankara pressed on in an attempt to cultivate a popular political consciousness capable of destabilizing what he considered to be established inequalities. As the subsequent sections show, Sankara pursued concrete policies to “decolonize mentalities” and improve overall happiness by seeking wide and constant input from experts as well as people at the grassroots; yet, the revolution faced considerable criticism in and out of Burkina Faso. Technicians into the Villages and into the Streets Sankara believed in surrounding himself with people who had a great deal of practical experience and knowledge and often requested feedback and insight on the progress of the revolution. Such people included agroecologists and agronomists, accountants, civil engineers, doctors, economists, teachers, veterinarians, pan-African and Marxist political thinkers, journalists, and more. Sankara sent envoys and appealed to such people to join him in Burkina Faso for “brainstorming” sessions (Benamrane 2016, 128–9) and for tours of the countryside. Through this, Sankara sought to foster important exchanges between so-called experts and the Burkinabè people. He said: The world that we are fighting for will never be built by technicians, it will be built by ordinary humans, who will transform themselves in the process of transforming the conditions of their lives.

The late Egyptian pan-African political economist, Samir Amin, was among those invited to join Sankara and travel the countryside. Amin was invited several times by Sankara to visit the country and to offer his perspective and insights into the revolutionary process. Amin recalls that Sankara was “really simple, direct, open, someone who listen[ed] and respond[ed] without abuse of [his] leadership position.” Amin writes that of some of his discussions with Sankara addressed the issue of single party politics: Will [Sankara] seek to absorb [critics] into a new single party, or will he accept a more democratic, real-life formula that tolerates differences of opinion and opens the debate? This was the subject of repeated discussions with Thomas Sankara, who invited me to give my point of view. (Translated by author)

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Amin’s reflection on these conversations reveals Sankara’s propensity toward multifaceted decision making, including opening himself and his policies up to criticism by leading political economists. In the end, Sankara restricted multiparty politics on the basis that they had been historically superficial and fractious in a neocolonial Cold War context in African societies (Sylla 2012; Murrey 2018b). This decision generated considerable domestic and international critique of the revolution (Zeilig 2018). During Amin’s visits with technicians in Burkina, he remembers thinking of Amilcar Cabral’s 1966 speech at the First Solidarity Conference of the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America in Havana. In the speech, Cabral articulated the need for class suicide within the realization of a popular African revolution. Cabral said: in order to play completely the part that falls to it in the national liberation struggle, the revolutionary petty bourgeoisie must be capable of committing suicide as a class, to be restored to life in the condition of a revolutionary worker completely identified with the deepest aspirations of the people to which he belongs. (Italics original, Cabral 1797, 136)

The role of revolutionary leadership, according to this way of thinking, was “to remain faithful to the principles and the fundamental cause of this struggle… if national liberation is essentially a political question, the conditions for its development stamp on it certain characteristics that belong to the sphere of morals” (translated by author, Amin 2007, n.p.). In Bobo-Dioulasso, just two months before his assassination in 1987, Sankara spoke of his insistence on sacrifice and determination, “Burkina Faso needs a people of conviction, not a vanquished people subjugated to their fate.” His speeches frequently leaned toward what Amin calls “the sphere of morals”—even his renaming of the country (the land of the upright people: Burkina Faso) reflected Sankara’s insistence on an ethic of pragmatic sacrifice for the well-being, for the happiness, of society’s poorest peoples. This project of “class suicide,” Amin observes, had “material results… [including the] real increase in production, self-consumption and sales… [which] show at least partial success [of the revolution], which could have been improved over time” (translated by author 2012, Amin 2007, n.p.). In the end, Sankara would not have the time to build upon the revolution’s initial successes, rectify its disappointments, or make gradual improvements in revolutionary pedagogy. Logistical Challenges to Realizing Revolutionary Change The institutional body through which policy decisions and socioeconomic changes were brought forth was the National Council for the Revolution (CNR or Conseil National de la Révolution), which was made up of civilians and military personnel. Decision making was collective. The decision was made

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to ban existing political parties “on the basis that they were tools of the elite” (Harsch 2014, 55). At the local and grassroots level, people were summoned to create and participate in Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs or Comités de defense de la révolution). Although conceived of as a means to expand participation and open up channels of power to everyday citizens, the CDRs were critiqued as sometimes prejudiced or vindictive as well as disorganized in practice, including by Sankara himself (see “Raise Consciousness, Act, Produce,” 1986 and “Eight Million Burkinabè,” 1987). Sankara understood that the CDRs played a decisive role in protecting the revolution from counter-revolutionary forces; he said: …he who speaks of revolution without taking the necessary measures to protect that revolution commits a serious error and misunderstands the fighting capacities, the destructive capacities, of the forces of reaction… we called on the people on the evening of August 4 to organize themselves everywhere into Committees for the Defense of the Revolution because we had no illusions—the revolution would be attacked. (Sankara, “Raise Consciousness, Act, Produce,” 1984)

Yet, the actions and implementations of the CDRs were sometimes harmful to the people and to the revolutionary project. High in theoretical potential, the CDRs were fostered to ensure the direct participation of the people in the revolution. Sankara steadily encouraged “greater cohesion… greater unanimity… greater organic unity within the CDRs” (ibid.) as part of his “revolutionary pedagogic formula” (Harsch 2014, 64). But this was not to happen; the CDRs remained divisive. The horizons of Sankara’s political reorganizations were expansive, and other facets of the revolutionary pedagogy were also unpopular. Some criticized Sankara for being overly ambitious, impatient, or “youthful” (as the former French President Francois Mitterrand said of Sankara in 1986). Some critics asserted that he might have rather focused on one or two issues that he could have efficiently resolved, before moving on to additional problems. Some remember Sankara as being particularly intimidating in person. As one former Sankara compatriot told me, “he would invite experts from around the world to ‘advise’ him and then pretend to not know much on the topic… but then overwhelm the expert with expert questions.” There has also been speculation on the seriousness of his humility, or on the longevity of his fight against corruption and graft. Indeed, Sankara’s criticism of domestic corruption—the use of a public office for private gain—was one of his most determined battles. Sankara confronted and condemned the local c­ ultural foundations as well as the international actors, statutes, and practices that fostered corruption in the country. This was expressed as a total transformation of the political economy of the country—a confrontation with the powerful—to ensure the well-being of the people. Privatization was halted. Government officials had salaries and benefits slashed and were sometimes ridiculed and chas-

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tised in public. Ministers were spontaneously made to pay for the lunches of their drivers. Chiefs were stripped of certain powers. Soldiers were made to “live among the people.” Members of the old guard were brought to account at people’s courts. Men were berated for abusing women and for abandoning pregnant girlfriends (McFadden 2018). For Sankara, even the urban labor unions, some of which initially collaborated with Sankara and which might have been collaborators, needed to make sacrifices for the well-being of the country’s poorest and most marginalized: the rural poor (for a detailed analysis of Sankara’s relationship with labor unions, see Phelan 2018). In short, all power hierarchies were upended. This effort for total transformation created antipathy among many who risked and feared the loss of power, advantage, and/or status. It was likely his simultaneous battles against unions and corruption that were the most lethal for the revolution. Not only did anti-corruption policies challenge French-dominated neocolonial capitalism, they alienated him from the small Burkinabè bourgeoisie. It was precisely this class that would have needed to “commit class suicide” to safeguard the happiness and well-being of the masses. For Sankara to pursue the radically and militantly transformative vision of African statehood as one oriented to ensuring happiness for the most marginalized and excluded in Burkina, he also had to challenge the global paradigm of dependency and marginalization. There was tremendous hostility—structurally and politically—to this state transformation. Structurally, Sankara inherited a country significantly indebted by the mid-­ twentieth century Bretton Wood’s style of modernization and state development: an international financial system that encouraged “odious” lending to African states for large-scale, top-down projects, many of them of dubious success but with high interest rates (Ndikumana and Boyce 2011). Following the 1970s Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) crisis, those loans were called in by Western financial institutions seeking to mitigate their losses elsewhere. When countries were unable to repay, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) devised a new policy of repayment, structural adjustment programs (SAPs), which heralded the spread of neoliberalization across the continent. Sankara refused this transition to neoliberal economic restructuring in Africa and called for a pan-African collective refusal of debt repayment. This was a historical period that Amin (1991, 83) describes as “a kind of generalized offensive for the liberation of ‘market forces,’ aimed at the ideological rehabilitation of the absolute superiority of private property, legitimation of social inequalities and anti-statism of all kinds.” SAPs incentivized states to privatize and to downsize, withdrawing public welfare programs, cutting civil servant salaries, and eliminating subsidies on local goods in order to prioritize the use of state money toward international debt repayment. As states withdrew and poverty and inequality increased, international development organizations became increasingly important to moderating the material con-

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sequences of capitalist exploitation and extraction. Sankara explained the general attitude of economic “experts”: Well, they give us less than a year, for example, before our coffers are empty— before we’re no longer able to pay government employees and have to run to the International Monetary Fund or some other organization for help… Then they’ll set another deadline by which time, it seems obvious to them, we’ll fail. But we’ll hold our own through thick and thin. We’re proving over the long run and in real life that there are other game plans that can make it possible to bypass the classical methods of filling the coffers. (Interview with J. Rapp 1985, cited in Sankara 1988)

The anti-communist West disapproved of the Burkinabè revolution. In his speeches, Sankara often addressed the “infiltrators” and counter-­revolutionaries watching and observing the revolution. He explained, “[Y]ou have to avoid becoming one of the rats in the UN corridors. Because you can very quickly fall into international complicity, a kind of acquiescence that reduces the problems the people face to sterile sparring matches between theoreticians” (ibid.). In the late Cold War period, Burkina Faso, an agrarian and land-locked country, was troublesome for fear of what Western politicians and conservative pundits called “revolutionary contagion.” There was fear among some pundits that Sankara’s revolution might inspire neighboring movements (Jaffré 2018; Peterson 2018). On October 15, 1987, Thomas Sankara was assassinated alongside 12 of his comrades in a coup d’état largely believed to have been orchestrated by Captain Blaise Compaoré, Sankara’s second in command (Jaffré  2018;  Fall 2018). Compaoré claims that he missed that day’s cabinet meeting due to a personal illness. The next day, “the rectification” of the revolution was announced, as Compaoré and his cadre began to roll back Sankara’s policies and implement the neoliberal agenda and Structural Adjustments heralded by global capitalist financiers—those very policies that Sankara had resisted and critiqued as neocolonial (Jackson 2018).

Conclusion One of Sankara’s closest friends, Valère Somé, once remarked, “If Thomas Sankara lived, he would have said that he is not Sankariste” and, indeed, Sankara resisted ideological labels (Agence de Presse Africaine 2016). Yet, through his words and actions, Sankara elaborated a powerful political economy of happiness that disavows hegemonic international development and global capitalism, while insisting on the urgency of collective action and mental emancipation to confront and prioritize ecological, food, gender, and agrarian justice for the most marginalized. Activists and politicians continue to draw inspiration from Sankara’s focus on collective “mental decolonization” against cultural imperialism as well as his anti-capitalist political economy. The popular movements of 2011 and 2014 in

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Burkina stand out as particularly remarkable demonstrations of the potential for what happens when people unify against neo-imperialism, coloniality, and racialized capitalism—including under the banner of “Sankara’s children” (Soré 2018). Speaking in Geneva in honor of International Human Rights Day, British Labor Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn quoted Thomas Sankara on debt, exploitation, and solidarity (Corbyn 2017). There are currently “over one hundred Twitter accounts with some variety of the handle @ThomasSankara… from various parts of the world that tweet about Sankara” (Ouedraogo 2018, 20). The South African Economic Freedom Fighters realized a “Sankara Pledge” for members, in which Sankara’s dedication to honor, self-sacrifice, and people’s empowerment was highlighted as an inspiration for contemporary resistance (Kabwato and Chiumbu 2018). Samir Amin recognized that Burkina Faso’s August Revolution was une révolution inachevée (an unfinished revolution; see also McFadden 2018). In this, Sankara’s revolutionary pedagogy is a starting rather than ending point: the elucidation of a pan-African political economy of happiness, pedagogical self-empowerment, and rigorous anti-imperial tactics provide foundations for reimagining the state in Africa.

Notes 1. On the first anniversary of the revolution, Thomas Sankara renamed Upper Volta as “Burkina Faso”: land of upright people and land of people of integrity. 2. Unless otherwise specified, all speeches attributed to Thomas Sankara are available in the (1988) collected volume, Thomas Sankara Speaks: The Burkina Faso Revolution 1983–1987, edited by Michel Prairie. 3. I am grateful to the insightful comments and critique of Professor Jean-Pierre Jacob on an earlier draft of this chapter, including his remarks on the unfinished nature of this rail project.

References Agence de Presse Africaine. 2016. Thomas Sankara et Politique se Partagent la Une des Quotidiens, October 17. Available at http://news.aouaga.com/h/103086.html. Accessed 25 Feb 2020. Ake, Claude. 1996. Democracy and Development in Africa. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution. Amin, Samir. 1991. The Issue of Democracy in the Contemporary Third World. Socialism and Democracy 7 (1): 83–104. ———. 2007. Une Révolution Inachevée. Afrique Asie, 38–40. Available http://www. thomassankara.net/une-revolution-inachevee-un-temoignage-de-samir-amin/ Benamrane, Djilali. 2016. Sankara, Leader Africain. Paris: L’Harmattan. Bervoets, W., and M.  Loopmans. 2012. Right to the City and Slum Upgrading in Ouagadougou. In Locating Right to the City in the Global South: Transnational Urban Governance and Socio-Spatial Transformation, ed. Tony Roshan Samara, Shenjing He, and Guo Chen, 60–80. London: Routledge.

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Bhambra, Gurminder K., Kerem Nisancioglu, and Dalia Gebrial, eds. 2018. Decolonising the University. London: Pluto Press. Biney, Ama. 2018. Madmen, Thomas Sankara and Decoloniality in Africa. In A Certain Amount of Madness: The Life, Politics and Legacies of Thomas Sankara, ed. Amber Murrey, 127–146. London: Pluto Press. ———. 2019. Pan-Africanism: A History. In Routledge Handbook of South-South Relations, ed. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh Elena and Patricia Daley, 177–188. London: Routledge. Cabral, Amilcar. 1797. Unity and Struggle: Speeches and Writings. Trans. Michael Wolfers. New York: Monthly Review. Campbell, Horace. 2019. Defiant Scholarship in Africa: Challenges Bequeathed in the Era of Revolution and Transformation. Public Lecture at School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, June. Chantiluke, Roseanne, Brian Kwoba, and Anthianangamso Nkopo, eds. 2018. Rhodes Must Fall: The Struggle to Decolonise the Racist Heart of Empire. London: Zed Books. Corbyn, Jeremy. 2017. Speech at Geneva, International Human Rights Day, 10 December 2017. Available https://therealnews.com/stories/jeremy-corbynsgeneva-speech Diallo, M. Moustapha. 2019. Thomas Sankara: The Soldier of the People. In African Visionaries, ed. Agnes Ofosua Vandyck and Molly Nyagura and trans. Mary Esther Kropp Dakubu and Eva Maria Asante, 269–279. Legon-Accra: Sub-Saharan Publishers. Fall, Aziz Salmone. 2018. Afterword. In A Certain Amount of Madness: The Life, Politics and Legacies of Thomas Sankara, ed. Amber Murrey, 349–360. London: Pluto Press. Falola, Toyin, and Christian Jennings, eds. 2002. Africanizing Studies Across the Disciplines. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. Harsch, Ernest. 2014. Thomas Sankara: An African Revolutionary. Athens: University of Ohio Press. Jackson, Nicholas A. 2018. ‘Incentivized’ Self-Adjustment: Reclaiming Sankara’s Revolutionary Austerity from Corporate Geographies of Neoliberal Erasure. In A Certain Amount of Madness: The Life, Politics and Legacies of Thomas Sankara, ed. Amber Murrey, 113–124. London: Pluto Press. Jaffré, Bruno. 2018. Who Killed Thomas Sankara? In A Certain Amount of Madness: The Life, Politics and Legacies of Thomas Sankara, ed. Amber Murrey, 96–112. London: Pluto Press. Kabwato, Levi, and Sarah Chiumbu. 2018. ‘Daring to Invent the Future’: Sankara’s Legacy and Contemporary Activism in South Africa. In A Certain Amount of Madness: The Life, Politics and Legacies of Thomas Sankara, ed. Amber Murrey, 286–304. London: Pluto Press. Lalsaga, K.  Marcel Marie Anselme. 2012. Pouvoir et Société sous la Révolution au Burkina Faso: Le Rôle des Structures Populaires dans la Gouvernance Révolutionnaire de 1983 à 1987. Saarbrücken: Éditions Universitaires Européennes. McFadden, Patricia. 2018. Women’s Freedoms are the Heartbeat of Africa’s Future: A Sankarian Imperative. In A Certain Amount of Madness: The Life, Politics and Legacies of Thomas Sankara, ed. Amber Murrey, 170–179. London: Pluto Press. Murrey, Amber. 2018a. Introduction. In A Certain Amount of Madness: The Life, Politics and Legacies of Thomas Sankara, ed. Amber Murrey, 1–18. London: Pluto Press.

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———. 2018b. Africa’s Sankara: On Pan-African Leadership. In A Certain Amount of Madness: The Life, Politics and Legacies of Thomas Sankara, ed. Amber Murrey, 75–95. London: Pluto Press. Ndikumana, Léonce, and James K. Boyce. 2011. Africa’s Odious Debts: How Foreign Loans and Capital Flight Bled a Continent. London: Zed Books. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo. 2013. Empire, Global Coloniality and African Subjectivity. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books. Nokuthula, Hlabangane. 2018. Can a Methodology Subvert the Logics of its Principal? Decolonial Mediations. Perspectives on Science 26 (6): 658–693. Nyamnjoh, Francis. 2012. ‘Potted Plants in Greenhouses’: A Critical Reflection on the Resilience of Colonial Education in Africa. Journal of Asian and African Studies 47 (2): 129–154. ———. 2016. #RhodesMustFall: Nibbling at Resilient Colonialism in South Africa. Bamenda: Langaa Research and Publishing Common Initiative Group. Ouedraogo, Lassane. 2018. Mediated Sankarism: Reinventing a Historical Figure to Reimagine the Future. African Studies Quarterly 18 (1): 19–29. Peterson, Anne Palmer. 2010. Academic Conceptions of a United States Peace Corps. Journal of the History of Education Society 40 (2): 229–240. Peterson, Brian. 2018. The Perils of Non-Alignment: Thomas Sankara and the Cold War. In A Certain Amount of Madness: The Life, Politics and Legacies of Thomas Sankara, ed. Amber Murrey, 36–50. London: Pluto Press. Phelan, Craig. 2018. When Visions Collide: Thomas Sankara, Trade Unions and the Revolution in Burkina Faso, 1983–1987. In A Certain Amount of Madness: The Life, Politics and Legacies of Thomas Sankara, ed. Amber Murrey, 64–74. London: Pluto Press. Pondi, Jean-Emmanuel. 2016. Thomas Sankara et l’émergence de l’Afrique au XXle Siècle. Yaoundé: Éditions Afric’Eviel. Sankara, Thomas. 1988. Thomas Sankara Speaks: The Burkina Faso Revolution 1983–1987, ed. Michel Prairie. New York/London: Pathfinder. Soré, Zakaria. 2018. Balai Citoyen: A New Praxis of Citizen Fight with Sankarist Inspirations. In A Certain Amount of Madness: The Life, Politics and Legacies of Thomas Sankara, ed. Amber Murrey, 225–240. London: Pluto Press. Sylla, Ndongo Samba. 2012. Redécouvrir Sankara: Martyr de la Liberté. Douala: AfricAvenir/Exchange & Dialogue. Zeilig, Leo. 2018. Thomas Sankara and the Elusive Revolution. In A Certain Amount of Madness: The Life, Politics and Legacies of Thomas Sankara, ed. Amber Murrey, 51–61. London: Pluto Press.

CHAPTER 11

The Political Economy of Claude Ake Sylvester Odion Akhaine

Introduction Claude Ake (1939–1996) is unarguably one of the most respected radical intellectuals from Africa. In death, his intellectual contribution lives on. His scholarly contributions are revered in the field of social sciences in Nigeria, Africa and the world. The Department of Political Science, Lagos State University, intriguingly used the photographs of Karl Marx and Claude Ake on the cover page of its most recent handbook.1 The symbolism of this act is substantial and could be the offspring of many interpretations. One, it denotes Ake’s philosophical connexion to Marx, the man whose thoughts were rated the most influential on global events in the last century. Two, it conveys a sense of the high esteem in which Ake’s scholarship is held in his native country. And three, more relevant to the present enterprise is that it indicates Ake’s ideological leaning. This leads us to the liberal origin of his scholarship.

From Liberalism to Radical Political Economy It is pertinent to take a cursory look at Ake’s biographical details, especially the trajectory of his educational pursuits, to foreshadow the direction of his scholarship and eventual ideological moorings. He was born on February 18, 1939, and hailed from Omoku, Rivers State, Nigeria. He attended the Kings College in Lagos and thereafter enrolled to read economics at the University of Ibadan, then a college of the University of London, on scholarship. Armed with first-­ class honours, he proceeded to Columbia University in New  York where he earned his doctorate in political science with disciplinary focus on political

S. O. Akhaine (*) Department of Political Science, Lagos State University, Lagos, Nigeria © The Author(s) 2020 S. O. Oloruntoba, T. Falola (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of African Political Economy, Palgrave Handbooks in IPE, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38922-2_11

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economy, political theory and development studies. He subsequently became an assistant professor in the same university before transiting to Carleton University in Canada. He was visiting professor/fellow to various institutions, namely, the University of Nairobi in Kenya, the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania (a bastion of rigorous ideological contestations), the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, and Yale University and the Brookings Institution in the United States. He was president of the Nigerian Political Science Association and member of the editorial boards of the African Studies Review, African Pugwash, Nigerian Journal of Political Science and Current Anthropology. Also, he was a member of the board of the Sage series on “Modernization and Development in Africa” and editor-­ in-­chief of the African Journal of Political Science. Also, he was president of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa in Dakar, Senegal, at that time an umbrella institution for the social sciences in Africa, and vice-president of the Social Science Council of Nigeria. Besides membership, he consulted for various international organizations such as UNESCO, the World Bank, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, the International Institute for Labour Studies in Geneva, the International Social Science Council and the US Social Science Research Council, among others. What does the foregoing biographical note say about Ake’s initial liberal intellectual orientation? The Kings College of his time was famous for being the stronghold of anti-colonial struggle, with names like Gogo Chu Nzeribe and Anthony Enahoro as illustrious alumni. The nationalists of the period were caught in the dualism of liberal self-determination and the revolutionary augury of communism. The transition to the University of Ibadan, then a citadel of liberal intellectual tradition, might have greatly impacted him, no less than the journey to Columbia, United States, home of capitalist liberalism. Arowosegbe, whose disciplinary focus is Claude Ake, notes Columbia to be the birth place of “[Ake’s] career as a liberal scholar trained within the North American liberal tradition.”2 Arowosegbe cites Kelly Harris, who emphasized the methodological influence of the behavioural school, in vogue in the 1950s and 1960s, on Ake to buttress his point.3 Sanders identifies the insistence on observable behaviour as the focus of analysis and susceptibility to empirical testing as distinguishing features of behaviouralism. The latter has also shown an inclination towards the use and advancement of statistical techniques for analysing large amount of practical evidence.4 However, Ake’s early liberal bent is not in doubt and is borne out in his works of the period. Such works, namely, “Charismatic Legitimation and Political Integration,” A Theory of Political Integration, “Political Integration and Political Stability: A Hypothesis” and “Political Obligation and Political Dissent,” betray his liberal shut in. As Arowosegbe rightly notes, “[Ake’s] writings at this time reflected neither the Afro-centric engagement nor the neo-Marxist intervention in the debate on African studies that we find in his later works.”5

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The turning point of Ake’s scholarly turn from the liberal to the radical political economy perspective was his sojourn as a visiting professor at the University of Dar es Salaam, which witnessed a ferment of radical debates with the presence of giants like Walter Rodney, Abdulrahman Mohammed Babu and Issa Shivji, which spiralled in a triangular nexus to Makerere University and the University of Nairobi. The theoretical zeitgeist of the period was the underdevelopment theory, which sought to explain the pernicious predicament of the Third World including Africa in the relations of unequal exchange and domination by the metropoles. In the words of Rodney: ….indispensable component of modern underdevelopment is that it expresses a particular relationship of exploitation: namely, the exploitation of one country by another. All of these countries named ‘underdeveloped’ in the world are exploited by others; and the underdevelopment with which the world is now pre-occupied is a product of capitalist, imperialist and colonialist exploitation. African and Asian societies were developing independently until they were taken over directly or indirectly by the capitalist powers. When that happened, exploitation increased and the export of surplus value ensued, depriving the societies of the benefit of their natural resources and labour. That is an integral part of underdevelopment in the contemporary sense (emphasis in original).6

Arowosegbe acknowledges Ake’s transition to the vortex of ideological contestations: It was not until the 1970s that his position as a liberal scholar was challenged by a number of developments which suggested an alternative paradigm to him. The most important of these was the neo-Marxist debate at the University of Dar es Salaam, in Tanzania, which significantly changed Ake’s worldview and writings.7

The journey to Africa marked his transition to a radical political economy approach to understanding the continent’s reality—the truncated historical trajectory of Africa’s development which the underdevelopment school sought to explain. Stefanović and Mitrovićaver capture the substance of radical political economy as representing the ...creative development of Marx’s analysis of capitalism in contemporary conditions. Its conceptual apparatus is based on the consideration of the modern society in terms of power relations, present at different levels of socio-economic system and manifested in the forms of inequality, exploitation, relations of domination, alienation, dependent development.8

Ake’s works of this period underline his ideological conversion. Revolutionary Pressures in Africa is one such piece. Published in 1978, it eviscerates the class formation process in the continent and the class contradictions and locates the pathology, that is, the revolutionary pressure in the continent, in “the primary contradictions of the world economic system.”9 Ake’s thesis in this work states:

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the global struggle will exacerbate and radicalise the major contradiction in the relations of production of the African nations, the contradiction between the African bourgeoisie and the African proletariat, and by so doing hasten and effect its resolution in the form of a socialist revolution.10

Social Science as Imperialism: The Theory of Political Development came on the heels of Revolutionary Pressure in Africa in 1979. It is an epistemological affront on Western liberal scholars’ universalizing mission. It repudiates the mass of Western scholarship on the Third world as imperialism. The literature is legion: Edward Shils’ Political Development in the New States; Lucian Pye’s Aspects of Political Development; Gabriel Almond and G. Bingham Powell, Jr.’s Comparative Politics: A Developmental Approach; Wilt Walt Rostow’s The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto and Gabriel Almond and James Coleman’s The Politics of Developing Area, among others. Ake underlines the subtext of these theories of political development as follows: If we want to understand the ideological character of the theory of political development, we must bear in mind the historical context of the theory. The theory developed in the wake of the winning of formal independence by the colonies. The winning of independence jeopardized vital interest of the colonizing powers.11

Therefore, knowledge production seeks to perpetuate domination. He avers that every augury shows that Western social science plays a central role in the subordination and underdevelopment of the continent. Its latent function is “...to inhibit our understanding of the problems of our world, to feed us with noxious values and false hopes, to make us pursue policies which undermine our competitive strength and guarantee our permanent underdevelopment and dependence.”12 Without understanding the emasculating character of Western social science, and consequently extricating ourselves from the false consciousness that it perpetuates, the continent and its people will remain in the enclave of underdevelopment and dependence. Explicitly, Ake moves on to accentuate his mission thus: It seems to me that the alternative to Western development studies is not a social science with no ideological bias. That type of social science is neither possible nor desirable. The alternative has to be a social science whose thrust and values are more conducive to the eradication of underdevelopment, exploitation and dependence. A social science which meets that requirement will necessarily have socialist values.13

A Political Economy of Africa is expository in terms of the methodological foundation underpinning his “conversion.” Beyond its explanation of the contradictions of colonial social formation and the succeeding neocolonial features of the post-colonial economy, it unfolds the bones and sinews of the Marxist

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political economy (MPE) approach—dialectical materialism—which underpins his analysis of the African condition.14 Marxist political economy (MPE) is the science of the laws governing the production and exchange of the material means of subsistence in human society; laws being reflections of the intrinsicality of the objective processes in nature and society. (Varga 1968: 23)15

MPE studies the relations of production, that is, the relations that men/ women enter into during the process of material production, irrespective of their will. These relations are shaped by the ownership of the means of production and are critical to social relations. As observed elsewhere, “The MPE method is dialectico-historical materialism that combines both materialist and historical approaches to understanding the economic relations and the development of society. It analyses the interconnectedness and interrelation in social relations: from lower to the highest stage of development. This is the science that Marxism brought into political economy,”16 which Ake espoused. In his words, In fact the approach of this work rejects the idea of specialised disciplines, such as economics, in favour of a composite social science using material condition as its focal point and proceeding dialectically.17

His projection for the continent in this work was forlorn: The indications are that for the vast majority of the African socio-economic formations there will be neither significant capitalist development nor socialist development. The present stage of economic stagnation will continue, deepening class contradictions and causing governmental instability but not necessarily sparking off revolution in the foreseeable future.18

Another important work which draws on the methodological matrix laid out in A Political Economy of Africa is the Political Economy of Nigeria. Although it is an edited volume, it focuses on the interface between the national and foreign bourgeoisie, the attempt by the national bourgeoisie to create some autonomous capital base amidst the manipulative thrust of foreign capital. In the view of Moses K. Tesi, who reviewed the work, Political Economy of Nigeria underlines the significance of the contextual situations that the authors engaged with to make their case. Indeed, focusing on the petroleum industry, self-reliant development and indigenization illustrates in vivid terms the manipulative subjugation of the local bourgeoisie by their peers and alien bourgeoisies.19 A motif of Ake’s ideas of the state, politics and economy comes out in the works discussed above. Nevertheless, further light is to be shared on these conceptual categories.

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Concept of State, Politics and Economy in Africa and Nigeria Claude Ake works are integral in their specific treatment of the state, politics and economy in Africa, since the state is merely the epiphenomenon of the substructure, that is, the economic base of society. His notional engagement with the state is intelligible in his A Political Economy of Africa, Political Economy of Nigeria and Democracy and Development in Africa. In Democracy and Development in Africa, he stresses the point that: Although political independence brought some change to the composition of the state managers, the character of the state remained much as it was in the colonial era. It continued to be totalistic in scope, constituting a statist economy. It presented itself as apparatus of violence, had a narrow social base, and relied for compliance on coercion rather than authority.20

In the summation of Arowosegbe, Ake defines the state as a set of interactions and relationships among social classes and groups organized and sustained by political power. He sees it as the fundamental instrument of political power in a class-based society. Although he acknowledges the existence of other, non-capitalist forms of state domination, he presents the state as essentially a capitalist phenomenon and locates the particularities of the capitalist mode of production as the ideal-typical setting for the development of state domination.21

We can neither understand the state nor the economy if viewed as disparate categories. Aforesaid, they are connected. These become clearer in Ake’s explanation of the relationship between the state, government and the ruling class. According to him, “The ruling class is the social class which by virtue of its control of the means of production is able to command preponderance of social, political and economic goods and power.”22 He further states that: The relationship between the state and the ruling class is an extraordinarily complex one, being at once a relationship of fusion, complementarity, independence and contradiction. It is by the support of state power that existing property relations are maintained in the presence of the inevitable demand for redistribution.23

The nature of the state in Africa comes out in bold relief in his articulation of its colonial origin and the nexus between it, economy and democracy. It is in the nature of capitalist production that once it penetrates, it usurps the production process. The structural disconnect of the colonial economy formed the basis of the post-colonial state (post-colony used in a temporal sense). As Ake posits, “a disarticulated economy is one whose parts or sectors are not complementary.”24All the structures of exploitation were intact in the newly independent states of Africa. Imperialism undermined the development

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of indigenous capital. Ake notes that “In the early days of Africa’s colonization, there was very little indigenous capital to mobilize for investment and development.”25 As a consequence, the inherited structure of imperial rule continues to perpetrate dependency through control of the process of trade and exchange naturally on the basis of inequality. By ensuring structural integration, it also superintends the creative process of the development of instruments of labour, namely, technology. Ake underlines this point: “In technological, as in other areas, the pattern of dependence has not changed. African countries continue to rely on the industrialized capitalist countries for their technology.”26 Regrettably, effort at remediation of the disarticulation of African economies has not worked. Ake accounts for this: The major reason for the meagre progress is that the drive for economic development in the post colonial era has followed the line of least resistance, which is generally the least desirable from the point of view of social benefits, balanced development and in the long-term maximization of development.27

Importantly, the inherited structures of state were by their nature incapable of transforming the post-colonial economies. The state was characterized by an overarching absolutism and arbitrariness. As Ake puts it: Colonial politics was thus reduced to the crude mechanics of opposing forces driven by the calculus of power. For everyone in this political arena, security lay only in the accumulation of power. The result was an unprecedented drive for power; power was made the top priority in all circumstances and sought by all means.28

This provides the basis for understanding the development dilemma in Africa. As Ake notes, “the problem is not so much that development has failed as that it was never really on the agenda in the first place. By all indications, political conditions in Africa are the greatest impediments to development.”29 The logic for power also explained the dynamics of democratization processes in Africa. In his The Feasibility of Democracy in Africa, Ake charts the democratic course in Africa, underlining its liberal perversion as well as the essential factors which must be factored into the democratic equation for democracy to take root in Africa. Ake notes that, “Western countries see democratization of Africa as the adoption of liberal values and institutions and support it as a significant element in the consummation of the ascendancy of the political values of the West.”30 But for the struggling peoples of Africa, democratization means, “…struggling for the material betterment and political freedom and it would appear that they are convinced that in their particular historical circumstances, material betterment and even mere survival requires freedom from political oppression.”31 If democracy must take root in Africa, Ake argues that it must be based on the social context/experience and the fulfilment of the social needs.32

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Thoughts and Praxis In his Consciencism, Nkrumah posits that “Practice without thought is blind; thought without practice is empty.”33 Ake must have come to this realization when in 1991 he established the Centre for Advanced Social Sciences (CASS) in Port Harcourt, “a policy advocacy and research think-tank, which is today widely considered his crowning achievement.”34 Also in 1992, he was awarded the Nigerian National Merit Award and the Martin Luther Award for Community Service. Eric Pace in tribute upon his passing wrote: The center is a think-tank for social and environmental research. It also played a practical role, functioning in the early 1990’s as an honest broker concerning oil revenues and environmental issues between local officials and representatives of several minority groups in the oil-producing area in southeastern Nigeria.35

According to its mission statement, CASS “is an independent, non-­ governmental and non-profit think tank concerned with improving the scientific base of management and public policy in order to advance the development of Africa.”36 Its broad objectives include: To conduct high quality research on issues of development; socialize policymakers, researchers and managers with necessary scientific and technical skills; provide advisory services to both private and public organizations; and spread knowledge through seminars, symposia, conferences, briefings, workshops and the mass media. Apart from these, the Centre promotes specifically: Fundamental and applied research on development problems in Africa. It endeavors to produce knowledge by solving practical problems…CASS supports the production of knowledge in Africa in order to ensure the availability of knowledge, which addresses Africa’s capacity to use received knowledge effectively. At the same time, it strongly supports applied research because it cannot otherwise fulfill in a practical way, its mission of being an engine of progress in Africa.37

CASS somehow provides a response to the question of proffering solution, which agitated Tesi in his review of Political Economy of Nigeria. He argued that given the prognosis of the unworkability of the country, there is no hint as to what would make the country work.38 This was the direction that CASS was headed. It became a scholarly station for many scholars like NzongolaNtalaja, Omafume Onoge and Jinadu Adele among others. Today, it is not clear how much of the original enthusiasm in this direction is sustained.

Conclusion To sum up, it is to be reiterated that Ake was an intellectual giant, acknowledged globally. The view of David E. Apter, who is also the Henry J. Heinz II Professor of Comparative Political and Social Development at Yale, captured his intellectual essentiality; in his view, as quoted by Eric Pace in New York Times, Ake was a man with:

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Crackling intelligence and an outspokenly severe view of African politics and nevertheless, underneath that, a quality of understanding which was remarkably subtle and complex. But he was able to communicate the complexity in a straightforward manner.39

For the duo of Cyril Obi and Ukoha Ukiwo, Ake was: ...a prolific writer and socially engaged scholar. Of the many books he authored, several were instrumental in challenging mainstream social science theoretical perspectives and provoking a paradigm shift in African Political economy and social science.40

Furthermore, Efana remarked philosophically that: Social scientists are many and varied in values and meanings. That is why their epistemic community is atomistic. Claude Ake lived through it. He succeeded to invoke academic freedom for himself. That is why we can say he left behind what will live on to stimulate us develop new forms of behaviours, patterns and models in our discipline and beyond.41

More than any other epoch in history, the imperialism of the triad poses a far more dangerous dimension. It is not for the imposition of any value such as democracy, its ideological slogan, but rather the maximization of profit by transnational capital on a global scale. On the intellectual plane, efforts have been made and are being made to impose pure economics and post-­modernism to rationalize the prevailing global barbarism.42 The possibility for global renewal and social justice, which Amin hoped for, can only be realized by an epistemology hinged on the potentials of MPE. Therefore, the big question today is: Does a successor generation exist to sustain Ake’s radical intellectual tradition? Given the increasing normalization of neoliberal policy in the continent, it is doubtful whether a new “science of social science” transcendental which Ake constructed and mainstreamed can survive. Perhaps, a measure of optimism lays in the institution of various awards and programmes such as the Claude Ake Memorial Awards Program instituted by African-American Institute, the Nordic Africa Institute Claude Ake Visiting Chair, and the University of Port Harcourt-initiated Claude Ake School of Government. They are likely to drive the quest for critical scholarship. For example, the Claude Ake Memorial Awards Program “seeks to encourage young and mid-career African scholars-activists to carry out research, reflection and writing about their ideas and activities...engage in knowledge-based and reality-informed problem solving to address the continent’s development challenges, in the tradition of Claude Ake.”43Also, the School of Government at the University of Port Harcourt has as its objective the preservation, protection and enhancement of Ake’s “ideas and the kind of critical scholarship that those critical research and relevant research that emanated from those ideas.”44 Equally, those in search for an answer can turn to his works, namely, A Political

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Economy of Africa; Social Science as Imperialism, The Theory of Political Development; The Political Economy of Nigeria; Democracy and Development in Africa and The Feasibility of Democracy in Africa.

Notes 1. Department of Political Science, Lagos State University, student’s hand book, 2018–2022 (Lagos: Department of Political Science). 2. Jeremiah O. Arowosegbe. “Claude E. Ake: Political Integration and Challenges of Nationhood in Africa,” Development and Change 42, no. 1 (2011): 349. 3. Ibid. 4. David Sanders. “Behaviouralism,” in Theory and Methods in Political Science, eds. David Marsh and Gerry Stoker, 2nd edition (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 45. 5. Arowosegbe, “Claude Ake…,” 350. 6. Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Abuja: Panaf Publishing, 2009), 16. 7. Arowosegbe, “Claude Ake…,” 350. 8. Zoran Stefanović and Branislav Mitrović. “The Contribution of Radical Political Economy to Understanding the Great Recession.” Economics and Organization 8, no. 4 (2011): 345. 9. Claude Ake, Revolutionary Pressure in Africa (London: Zed Press Ltd., 1978), 11. 10. Ibid., 25. 11. Claude Ake, Social Science as Imperialism, The theory of political development (Ibadan: Ibadan University Press, 1982 [1979]), 77. 12. Claude Ake, “Social Science as Imperialism...,” xiv. 13. Ake, “Social Science as Imperialism,” xviii. 14. Claude Ake, A Political Economy of Africa (London: Longman, 1981). 15. Y.  Varga, Politico-Economic Problems of Capitalism (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1968), 23. 16. Sylvester Odion Akhaine. “Political Economy, Post-modernism and Corruption in Nigeria.” Paper presented at the International Conference on Policy, Conflict and Strategic Studies, Babcock University (June 13–15, 2006). 17. Ake, “A political Economy of Africa,” vi. 18. Ibid., 198. 19. Moses. K.  Tesi. “Review of Political Economy of Nigeria by Claude Ake.” Journal of Third World Studies 4, no. 2 (1987), 200–201. 20. Claude Ake. Democracy and Development in Africa. (Ibadan: Spectrum Books Limited, 2001 [1996]), 3. 21. Jeremiah O.  Arowosegbe. “State Reconstruction in Africa: the relevance of Claude Ake’s political thought.” International Affairs, 87, no. 3 (May 2011), 655. 22. Ake, “A Political Economy of Africa,” 127. 23. Ibid. 24. Ibid., 43. 25. Ibid., 55. 26. Ibid., 107. 27. Ibid., 88.

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28. Claude Ake, “Democracy and Development in Africa,” 3. 29. Ibid., 1. 30. Claude Ake. The Feasibility of Democracy in Africa. (Ibadan: Centre for Research, Documentation and University Exchange, 1992), 4. 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid., 7. 33. Kwame Nkrumah. Consciencism. (London: Panaf Books, 1964), 78. 34. Arowosegbe, “State Reconstruction in Africa...”, 654. 35. Eric Pace, “Claude Ake, 57, Nigerian Scholar and Activist,” New York Times, November 19, 1996, https://www.nytimes.com 36. Center for Advanced Social Science, “Mission Statement,” Center for Advanced Social Science, Port Harcourt, Nigeria. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid. 39. Pace, “Claude Ake, 57…”. 40. Cyril Obi and Ukoha Ukiwo. “Claude Ake (February 18, 1939–November 7, 1996).” June 6, 2010. https://nai.uu.se/scholarships/claude_ake/ClaudeAke-biotext-2010.pdf 41. Lawrence Efana. “In Memoriam—Claude Ake (1939–1996).” Nordic Journal of African Studies 5, no. 2 (1996): 99. 42. Samir Amin. The Neoliberal Virus: Permanent War and the Americanization of the World. James H. Membrez, Trans. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2004). 43. Pambazuka News. “Claude Ake Memorial Award Program.” Pambazuka News. May 28, 2001, https://www.pambazuka.org 44. Correspondence from Prof. Eme Ekekwe, former Director, Claude Ake School of Government, December 31, 2018.

References Ake, Claude. 1978. Revolutionary Pressures in Africa. London: Zed Press Ltd. ———. 1979. Social Science as Imperialism, The Theory of Political Development. Ibadan: Ibadan University Press. ———. 1981. A Political Economy of Africa. London: Longman. ———. 1992. The Feasibility of Democracy in Africa. Ibadan: Centre for Research, Documentation and University Exchange. ———. 1996. Democracy and Development in Africa. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Akhaine, Sylvester Odion. 2006. Political Economy, Post-modernism and Corruption in Nigeria. Draft of Paper Presented at the International Conference on Policy, Conflict and Strategic Studies. Babcock University, June 13–15. Amin, Samir. 2004. The Neoliberal Virus: Permanent War and the Americanization of the World. Trans. James H. Membrez. New York: Monthly Review Press. Arowosegbe, Jeremiah O. 2011a. Claude E. Ake: Political Integration and Challenges of Nationhood in Africa. Development and Change 42 (1). ———. 2011b. State Reconstruction in Africa: The Relevance of Claude Ake’s Political Thought. International Affairs 87 (3). Efana, Lawrence. 1996. In Memoriam—Claude Ake (1939–1996). Nordic Journal of African Studies 5 (2).

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Nkrumah, Kwame. 1964. Consciencism. London: Panaf Book Ltd. Obi, Cyril, and Ukoha Ukiwo. 2010. Claude Ake (February 18, 1939–November 7, 1996). https://nai.uu.se/scholarships/claude_ake/Claude-Ake-biotext-2010.pdf Pace, Eric. 1996. Claude Ake, 57, Nigerian Scholar and Activist. New York Times, November 19. https://www.nytimes.com Pambazuka News. 2001. Claude Ake Memorial Award Program. Pambazuka News, May 28. https://www.pambazuka.org Rodney, Walter. 2009. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. 2nd ed. Abuja: Panaf Publishing. Sanders, David. 1995. Behaviouralism. In Theory and Methods in Political Science, ed. David Marsh and Gerry Stoker, 2nd ed., 45–64. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Tesi, Moses E. 1987. Review of Political Economy of Nigeria by Claude Ake. Journal of Third World Studies 4 (2). Varga, Y. 1968. Politico-Economic Problems of Capitalism. Moscow: Progress Publishers.

CHAPTER 12

A Historical Political Economy Approach to Africa’s Economic Development: A Critique of Thandika Mkandawire’s Interests and Incentives, Ideas, and Institutions Marcel Nagar

Introduction This chapter is concerned with a notable African scholar-diplomat—a political economic doyen—Malawi’s Thandika Mkandawire and his major contributions towards Africa’s economic development in both policy, theory and practice. Since the period of colonization, development in Africa has been largely directed by external actors. “Development” has therefore come to be viewed as a commodity in which industrialized Western countries and their institutions (notably the United Nations [UN], the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund [IMF]) have been the main producers and sellers of development products (consisting of ideas, policies, projects, expertise, technology, and equipment), while underdeveloped African countries have bought into this “development market” as willing buyers.1 By participating within the development market, African states placed a considerable degree of trust in global institutions to provide the adequate support needed for the development of their economies. However, this trust was largely misplaced and, to a great extent, African leaders—being the “master builders of the continent”—have been M. Nagar (*) The National Research Foundation (NRF), South African Research Chair Initiative (SARChI): African Diplomacy and Foreign Policy, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 S. O. Oloruntoba, T. Falola (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of African Political Economy, Palgrave Handbooks in IPE, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38922-2_12

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unable to bring about socioeconomic development for the majority of its population.2 Thus, the development products “bought” by African states have largely failed because they have neglected traditional thought and home-grown ideas in pursuing Africa’s economic development. According to Thandika Mkandawire, the development products bought by African governments, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s, have ultimately resulted in a “maladjusted” African state: “an anemic regulatory state” unable to achieve developmental success.3 This chapter, therefore, focuses on the academic contributions of an accomplished political economic scientist, Thandika Mkandawire, and, more specifically, on his efforts in carving Africa’s development that has broadened our knowledge and understanding of the political economy of Africa’s development. By way of a brief introduction, Professor Thandika Mkandawire is a widely published academic whose decades of research focus on development theory, economic development, and social policy of developing countries as well as the political economy of development within Africa. In approaching and confronting the issue of Africa’s development, Mkandawire calls on social scientists to revisit Adam Smith’s “wealth of nations”,4 with Smith’s major focus treatise ignoring the fundamental critique for Africa: a realist critique (the key actors behind these processes) as well as a capitalist critique (the manner in which wealth is accumulated and distributed). A comprehensive African scholarly endeavor, therefore, is what Mkandawire calls for along with a “multidisciplinary approach”—but even more so, it necessitates what Mkandawire terms “a historically grounded political economy approach.”5 Mkandawire’s greatest scholarly contribution to Africa’s political economic literature and thought has arguably been his sound application of including a historical political economic centered approach to Africa’s developmental issues. It is for this reason that this chapter frames the central discussions on Mkandawire’s scholarly contributions to the field of Africa’s political economy as situated within a historical political economy approach. In so doing, I expand on one of Mkandawire’s core academic arguments that assert: “…the slew of reforms of the 1980s and 1990s at best produced a maladjusted [African] state….”6 I do so in this chapter by arguing that the various “ideas,” “institutions,” and “interests and incentives” that permeate throughout Africa’s ­post-colonial political economy have ultimately led to the “maladjustment” of the contemporary African state. Thus, this chapter first draws on Mkandawire’s work in arguing that the “ideas” imposed on African governments (in the form of various economic doctrines) by international organizations, international financial institutions (IFIs), and aid agencies have contributed to the processes of maladjusting the African state by largely disrupting its critical learning process in the post-colonial era and also compromising the quality of African economists needed to effectively manage Africa’s development. It does so by assessing the conceptual and theoretical frameworks which underpin this chapter’s discussion, framing Mkandawire’s scholarly contributions in the field of Africa’s political economy. The chapter then focuses on the role of “institutions” within Africa’s development. It discusses how the slew of institutional reforms undertaken by African

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governments, at the insistence of Western donors, have resulted in the maladjustment of the African state, in so far that it has engendered departmentalism and stripped the African state of its essential transformative institutional architecture. In this regard, I provide an analysis of Mkandawire’s body of work by applying his recommended historical political economy approach to Africa’s economic development trajectory and discuss Mkandawire’s academic contributions, namely: “The Planning Era” (1960s and 1970s); “The Structural Adjustment Era” (1980s and 1990s); and the current time period—“The ‘Post-Washington’ Era.”7 Third, the analysis in this chapter further draws our attention to the various, and at times competing, “interests and incentives” of dominant global powers and the roles that they have played. In pursuing their parochial interests, these actors led to the demise of Africa with their continuous involvement in Africa’s economic affairs. This has notably been seen in their interference within Africa’s economic policy and trade of raw goods, which undermines Africa’s markets and its attempts at value-added manufacturing, thereby moving Africa further away from the achievement of its developmental goals. The third conclusory section summarizes the main arguments and points made within the chapter and provides a final word regarding the state of development in Africa in the current global order.

Conceptual and Theoretical Definitions and Debates Development Defined A common definition of development typically connects it to economic growth and financial prosperity, defined as “a process of economic change involving the construction of more complex and productive economies capable of generating higher material standards of living.”8 Concerning Africa’s development, Mkandawire makes a clear distinction between the continent’s economic “recovery” and its “development.”9 Africa’s economic recovery involves the maximization of existing capacities to reach earlier stages of development. Development, or “catching up” with industrialized and economically advanced nations, necessitates the creation of new capacities. In this regard, Africa is faced with the challenging task of not only recovering from decades of economic recession and stagnation, but of achieving the “accelerated development” envisaged by the World Bank in 1981.10 In short, development in Africa is defined by Mkandawire as “deliberate acts of emulation and learning to achieve certain desirable goals” and moreover, “there is considerable social and intellectual awareness [on the part of African leaders] of the choices being made.”11 Put another way, development is “a deliberate and intentional process of economic change, as opposed to simply a result of the blind forces of the market….”12 However, a more broad definition of development defined by Amartya Sen (1999) offers an alternative and holistic way of thinking about development which transcends a narrow perspective that emphasizes economic

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indicators such as growth of gross national product (GNP), gross national income (GNI), industrialization and technological innovations as measurements of development.13 Sen argues that development should be regarded first and foremost as a process that enhances the quantity of real freedoms that people can exercise. The process of development therefore necessitates the abolishment of all impediments to the realization of freedoms, such as: “poverty as well as tyranny, poor economic opportunities as well as systematic social deprivation, neglect of public facilities as well as intolerance or overactivity of repressive states.”14 In line with the definition offered by Sen, Mkandawire considers the overall fundamental objectives of development to be the mitigation of human material suffering, the enhancement of individual capabilities, and the broadening of their choices.15 Moreover, Mkandawire conceives of development in Africa as being a deliberate choice taken by African governments with the sole purpose of “catching-up” with more economically advanced and industrialized nations. According to Mkandawire, the desire of African nations to “catch-up” with and emulate industrialized nations is not externally imposed by Western actors, but rather an inherent and innate human characteristic produced as a result of human interaction and exchange. Development as defined by Mkandawire may arguably raise a few eyebrows among African scholars—particularly as it is defined according to a Westernized standard. In defining development in Africa as the pursuit of catching up with the West, Mkandawire bases his definition squarely on “culturally deprived Western premises” by focusing solely on the “ethnocentric experience of the Western industrialized world.”16 Nevertheless, regardless of the manner in which development in Africa is defined—be it in a purely economic sense, a redistributive and inclusive sense, as freedoms (as suggested by Sen), or as catching up with the West—what remains most important is the manner in which development is pursued. As noted in this chapter’s introduction, the manner in which development is pursued in Africa and the strategies employed to this end should always be context specific and internally directed. While the definition of development will most likely remain up for debate among scholars and academics, what is clearly evident is the need for African-devised and driven development plans. Through its discussions, this chapter makes a case for African leaders to assume ownership of the continent’s development trajectory and devise context-specific development strategies. It will do so by drawing attention to the disastrous consequences that have resulted from Africa’s participation within the West’s development market. The Political Economy Approach The political economy approach is an important tool for assessing economic development, particularly as it relates to development and governance processes within democratic societies. This approach conjoins the traditional fields of politics and economics and thus considers the contestation over power and the

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allocation of resources and the impact on economic development. Among Western scholars, there are debates on what constitutes the political economy approach. For instance, Sarah Collinson (2003) notes that the political economy approach is primarily concerned with “the interaction of political and economic processes within a society: the distribution of power and wealth between different groups and individuals, and the processes that create, sustain and transform these relationships over time.”17 Another earlier definition, offered by Merilee Grindle in 1999, refers to the political economy approach as “efforts to investigate the intersection of economics and politics in policy choice and in policy and institutional change.”18 Therefore, Grindle argues that the political economy approach should be a basis to analyze policy issue areas that transcend “traditional concerns with economic interest and policies to focus on the reform of the state and the emergence of demands related to social policy.”19 Defined in this manner, as noted above, a political economy approach is understood to place emphasis on politics on the one hand, and economic processes on the other hand. Moreover, it is thus understood that such an approach focuses on the specific wealth-generating economic processes and its effect on political decision making.20 Central to the political economy analysis thought are the questions of “who gains” and “who loses” as a result of these political outcomes—the answers to which ultimately have a bearing on development.21 But are Western views such as those expressed by Collinson and Grindle, and their political economy approaches as discussed above, enough for addressing Africa’s economic malaise? The discussion therefore expands on Africa’s assessments— the effect and interplay of Mkandawire’s ideas, interests, and incentives, and institutions as a fundamental bearing on Africa’s post-colonial development—as contributing factors to the maladjustment of the African state. The role of ideas in development has arguably received the least amount of attention within the academic political economy literature on Africa. Mkandawire (2014) maintains that while much emphasis has been placed on institutions, societal interests and incentives over the years, less emphasis has been placed on the effect which ideas have had in shaping development policy outcomes and, more so, in hindering the process of development. For Mkandawire, studies that focus solely on societal interests, the demand for effective institutions and the ways in which institutional structures restrict the actions of society are insufficient to the task of providing a comprehensive analysis of Africa’s political economy.22 Therefore, in order to offer a holistic historical political economy analysis of Africa, social scientists need to interrogate the role that ideas have and continue to play in Africa’s development trajectory. While Mkandawire acknowledges that the ideas produced by social scientists play a minimal role in bringing the issue of development back on Africa’s social agenda, their ideas play an integral role in expanding society’s political viewpoint and determining the boundaries of what can and cannot be achieved by societies.23 While ideas may be considered to be the least profound independent variable out of the three independent variables assessed under the political

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economy approach, they have an “autonomous” and visible influence on institutions as well as interests and incentives.24 For these reasons, ideas matter. Moreover, and in keeping with his historical political economy approach to the analysis of Africa’s development, Mkandawire notes that the direction of Africa’s historical development trajectory has indeed proven the significance of ideas in shaping development outcomes: “One important lesson of history is that ideas matter.”25 In providing a historical political economy analysis of Africa’s development, Mkandawire does not seek to minimize the impact of institutions, interests, and incentives on Africa’s development. He does so by noting that: “…power arrangements, institutional inertia, and economic conjecture all play their role, and the significance of ideas is circumscribed in a fundamental way by the dialectical interaction with and among these factors.”26 Therefore, in line with the political economy approach discussed above, Mkandawire acknowledges the interconnectedness between ideas, interests and incentives, and institutions. As will be shown in the remaining sections of this chapter, Mkandawire has met all these requisites in his scholarly contributions through his application of a historical political economy analysis of Africa’s development. Furthermore, the political economy approach incorporates the “3-I” framework in its analysis. The 3-I framework concerns itself with three independent variables—“interests and incentives,” “ideas,” and “institutions”—therefore this discussion considers each variable and further provides an analysis within the specific political issue.27 The political economy approach thus assesses the relative significance of interests and incentives, ideas, and institutions within the development process by analyzing the manner in which these three independent variables interact with each other to shape the outcomes of development.28 Therefore, the political economy approach first assesses the interests and incentives which motivate various actors (including political elites) and groups, and how they translate into policy outputs that either promote or obstruct development. Second, it assesses the role that values and ideas, such as political ideologies, religious and cultural beliefs, play in shaping political behavior and policy outcomes. Third, it assesses the role of formal and informal institutions, as “the rules of the game in society,” in framing social, political and economic competition.29 Taken together, political economic analysis can be used as a tool to gain a greater understanding of how interests and incentives, institutions, and ideas interact with one another and affect political action and development policy. “Interests and incentives,” “ideas,” and “institutions” thus form the basic analytical building blocks of the political economy approach. One important aspect of this approach is the interconnectedness and interdependencies between the three variables because it is within these interactions that politics occurs.30 Therefore, it is the analysis of the ways in which these three variables interact and relate with each other which is of most significance to political economy analysis. As concluded by Hugh Heclo (1994), “ideas tell interests what to mean,” “interests tell institutions what to do,” and “institutions tell

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ideas how to survive.”31 In other words, institutions serve as the “scaffolding” that connects the various stakeholders within a particular policy network; the various interests and incentives are embedded within each stakeholder; and ideas are exchanged among the various stakeholders within the network structure.32 Furthermore, changes in one or all three variables can occur as a result of either endogenous or exogenous factors, which may in turn alter the policy network structure and produce feedback loops within the development policy process.33 Anticipating and pinpointing such changes and the consequences thereof as it relates to Africa’s development requires a detailed analysis of both the political and economic contexts as well as accurate historical knowledge.

Historical Political Economy Approach to the Case of Africa’s Post-Colonial Development Having defined the key concepts and theoretical approach which underpin this chapter’s discussion on the scholarly contributions of Thandika Mkandawire, we now turn to applying Mkandawire’s historical political economy approach to Africa’s post-colonial development trajectory by addressing the “The Planning Era,” followed by “The Structural Adjustment Era,” and thereafter “The Post-Washington Consensus Era,” which are critically analyzed by situating the role of ideas, interests and incentives, and institutions in the maladjustment of the contemporary African state. The Planning Era (1960s and 1970s) The dominant economic ideas that characterized “The Planning Era of the 1960s and 1970s” were largely based on structuralist-developmentalist and neo-Marxist perspectives.34 Africa’s ideology of developmentalism took root following the continent’s independence.35 Under the banner of developmentalism, many African leaders crafted their own personal ideologies in an effort to spearhead the development process by “rallying the masses” around the “national project” of development.36 Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, for example, promoted the philosophy of Pan-Africanism; Julius Nyerere of Tanzania pursued his ideology of development through his philosophy of “Ujamaa”; Zambian Humanism was developed by Kenneth Kaunda and served as Zambia’s national philosophy and ideology in 1967; and similarly, Leopold Senghor devised “Negritude” as the national ideology for newly independent Senegal.37 The arrival of independence in Africa during the 1960s and its accompanying ideology of developmentalism thus brought with it the great promise and expectation of development which was to be pursued by African governments and its leaders.38 The pursuit of “development” was therefore defined as the key interest of African nations and was a conscious and deliberate choice made by African leaders in the initial post-independence dispensation.

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Core to Mkandawire’s academic underpinning of Africa’s political economy approach is his structuralist-developmentalist perspective—which he used as a hybrid concept and theory comprising of structuralism (the economic doctrine) and developmentalism (the corresponding national development strategy). Structuralism, on the one hand, is a theory of underdevelopment that is based on the assumption that underdevelopment occurs as result of structural factors such as “bottlenecks, rigidities, and market failure.”39 Developmentalism, on the other hand, is considered to be a “positive agenda for development.”40 Developmentalist strategies are based on the assumption that underdeveloped and late industrializers ought to construct a Developmental State whereby they adopt a mercantile political economy approach and use the state apparatus to “catch up” with other developed nations with the help of advanced technology.41 Neo-Marxism theories and approaches to development are premised on “the interdependence of the capitalist world economy,” and that “development and underdevelopment are partial, interdependent aspects of one global system.”42 Neo-Marxism attributes underdevelopment to the nature of the “center-periphery relation” within the global economy, whereby the global south is exploited by the global north. Neo-Marxism highlights the global class divisions and systemic inequalities that exist within the international economic structure. As noted above, during the 1960s and 1970s, Africa’s goal of development was informed by the prevailing structuralist-developmentalist and neo-Marxist perspectives and viewed through the analytical lens of Keynesian and development economics. Development in Africa thus took on a particular meaning in so far that it affirmed as a prerequisite the need for an interventionist state within economic policymaking. State-led development was therefore one of the hallmarks of Africa’s first wave of development initiatives. Within Africa, these prevailing ideas, along with Africa’s overriding goal of development, culminated in the national development plans of the 1960s, which were followed by the national development projects of the 1970s. The formulation and execution of national development plans in Africa was already well underway when the continent achieved independence in the 1960s. As early as the initial post-World War II period, the terminal colonial state had already undertaken a series of “colonial welfare and development” plans.43 In an effort for colonial leaders to tighten their grip on their soon-tobe former colonies, the colonial rulers sought to improve the well-being of their colonial subjects through the construction of developmental welfare states.44 The construction of developmental welfare states resulted in an increase in the technical and specialized services on the part of the terminal colonial state that culminated in a “second colonial occupation” by increasing the function and scope of its colonial project, and further paved the way for colonial powers to retain an imperial relationship with their soon-to-be former colonies.45

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Thus, economists from the metropoles were tasked with the formulation of the first plans during the terminal colonial phase. Thereafter, due to the absence of indigenous economic planners at the time of independence, expatriate planners (often regarded as incompetent) were used to ghostwrite national development plans and offer technical assistance.46 In order to address the shortfalls of indigenous planners, Africans were sent to institutions where they received training in economics specifically designed for developing countries. However, these customized economics courses tended to focus more on equipping would-be African planners with knowledge of “‘relevant’ case studies” and less on equipping them with a deeper understanding of economic theory.47 Western views were also heavily emphasized in the training of Africa’s senior government officials and economic policymakers through institutions such as the Economic Development Institute and the United Nations Institute for Development and Economic Planning (IDEP).48 Initially, Africa’s first wave of development strategies brought about a satisfactory level of economic growth, with certain countries (such as, Botswana, Gabon, Lesotho, Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire, Seychelles, Swaziland, Congo Brazzaville, Rwanda, and Nigeria) experiencing growth rates which were on par with, if not exceeding, other regions on the globe.49 During the 1960s, the African continent collectively achieved a 3 percent positive growth rate.50 However, there was no clear correlation between Africa’s economic growth records and its national development plans, and when its economic indicators began to lag, Africa’s economic policy shifted its attention away from national development plans toward projects.51 Africa’s “crisis of planning” had thus rendered Africa’s newly trained and educated development planners obsolete. Its new emphasis on development projects called for economists with specialized skills in “project evaluation” and “project planning.”52 Similarly to the economic training given to development planners, project, planners, evaluators, and implementers were not equipped with a broader and deeper knowledge of the fundamental principles of the market economy. Africa’s development projects emphasized industrial, agricultural, and physical and human infrastructural schemes with the same objective of lessening its dependence on imports and achieving a favorable balance of trade on the continent. All these projects were externally driven and financed by Cold War political considerations, owing to the competition between the West and the Communist blocs.53 The Cold War lasted from 1957 to 1989, whereby the newly independent African states were used as proxies by the two global superpowers in their skirmishes with each other.54 The two superpowers both pursued geopolitical strategies and foreign policies in which they offered support to African governments who shared and backed their ideologies, that is, the West’s capitalism and the Communist Bloc’s socialism.55 Africa, therefore, found itself in the midst of a tussle between the United States and the Soviet-led communist bloc, both superpowers seeking access to and control over “Africa’s resourcerich territories.”56 Another outcome of the Cold War was the increase of loans given to Africa by the West in an effort to bolster its parochial interests on the

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continent. More importantly, the large loans given to African governments to fund national development projects did not consider the macroeconomic implications thereof—in particular, the heavily indebted position it would leave African countries in the 1980s. In applying Mkandawire’s historical political economy approach model, one can clearly see the interplay between “interests and incentives and ideas”. His historical analysis of Africa’s Planning Era illustrates the influence the interests and incentives of external actors—which included former colonial powers, donors, IFIs such as the World Bank, and international organizations (the UN)—had on the ideas that shaped and permeated African economic policy during the 1960s and 1970s. The interests that former colonial powers had in sustaining an imperial relationship with their former African colonies was evident in the degree to which their spheres of influence extended directly into the formulation of Africa’s national development plans through various forms of technical assistance. Within the context of the Cold War, the economic doctrines of the competing global powers also had a bearing on the training of African economists and the funding of development projects. For example, the United States, as a part of its containment strategy and effort to spread its liberal economic ideas, regularly brought African students to study at American universities and sent American faculty members to teach at African universities.57 By embroiling the newly independent African countries within their conflict, the two superpowers disrupted Africa’s process of learning and self-actualization, as they pressured African leaders to prioritize the demands of the West and East over that of the developmental needs of their people. In doing so, the competing global interests and incentives of the East and the West during the Cold War greatly contributed to the maladjustment of the African state. The interests and incentives of donors and IFIs who funded the teaching of economics also had a remarkable influence on the quality of African economists produced. Donor-driven training of African economists were largely concerned with the teaching of economics that was directly relevant to development planning and project management. Donor-driven training ultimately produced a cohort of African economic planners and researchers who were primarily engrossed with the “relevancy” of their work.58 Consequently, they were largely divorced from policy space and lacked a deeper understanding and appreciation of economics. In this manner, donor-driven training of African economists heavily contributed to the “maladjustment” of the African state. The Structural Adjustment Era (1980s and 1990s) Beginning from the mid-1970s, Africa experienced a period of stagnant and retrogressive economic growth combined with political instability. The 1980s is often referred to as Africa’s “lost decade,” which was offset by the 1973 oil crisis and saw a marked reversal in the economic and social progress achieved in the initial post-independence period. Africa’s lost decade posed a serious

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challenge to the ideas informing development economics and project planning, and attention was subsequently turned to the macroeconomics of stabilization. The dominant economic ideas that informed The Structural Adjustment Eras of the 1980s and 1990s were that of neoliberalism. Broadly defined, neoliberalism is an “adjective derived from neo-liberal economic thinking, which proposes that economic growth can best be achieved under conditions of minimal state involvement in the economy.”59 As an economic development doctrine, neoliberalism attributes underdevelopment to excessive state intervention in the economy and believes “that market forces rather than states are the solution to the world’s developmental and governance problems.”60 The emphasis which neoliberalism placed on an unfettered global market economy as the solution to development thereby rendered national development and project planning undesirable. The paradigm shift towards neoliberalism and the emphasis that it placed on liberal economic reforms can be viewed in light of the fall of communism and its accompanying command economies following the conclusion of the Cold War in 1989 and the ascendency of neoliberalism as the dominant global politico-economic orthodoxy.61 Thus, under the post-Cold War neoliberal regime, a great emphasis was placed on global economic deregulation and liberalization.62 The havoc which the Cold War proxy wars had brought to Africa left it in a vulnerable position when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, and African political leaders ultimately had to adjust and navigate the “new international relations, the challenges of multilateralism, and trade routes redesigned to conduct trade liberalization through open markets” of the post-Cold War world order.63 Consequently, in the post-Cold War period, Africa’s global position in politics and economics diminished as it lost much of its bargaining power with the superpowers within the context of an unipolar world order.64 Within Africa, the dominant neoliberal ideas culminated in the IMF and World Bank’s structural adjustment program (SAPs), which was introduced in the 1980s and continued into the 1990s. The introduction of SAPs in Africa, with their emphasis on the liberalization of national markets, debt repayment, and the integration of African economies into the global market through export-led strategies, sought to diminish the involvement of the state in the process of development. The SAPs adopted a “one-size-fits-all” approach and set out to achieve its objectives by attaching conditionalities to the loans and aid it offered to African countries. Given that the previous Planning Era had only produced development economists and project managers in Africa, there was an absence of African economists who were well versed in macroeconomics. Africa had no “local bastions of neoliberalism” who were able to effectively implement the SAPs.65 In applying Mkandawire’s historical political economy approach, one can see the intersection and interplay between “interests and incentives,” “institutions,” and “ideas” during the Structural Adjustment Era in Africa. This approach illustrates the role and power that the IFIs had in pushing their own Western neoliberal economic ideals onto African borrowing countries, thereby

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attempting to shape the development discourse within Africa to mirror their own. Western industrialized countries arguably had an economic incentive which drove their neoliberal agenda—the liberalization and integration of African economies into the global economy would ultimately result in the expansion of free trade from which they would stand to benefit handsomely. In this manner, the World Bank, in particular, became regarded as the “Knowledge Bank” as well as “the single most important external source of ideas to developing country policy-makers.”66 As in the earlier era, Africa lacked complete ownership of its national policies—development policies were ghostwritten for African countries on behalf of donors. African ownership of economic policies extended as far as the rubber-stamping of prepackaged, “one-size-fits-all policies.” This has been particularly problematic for African states because the promotion of socioeconomic development requires that development strategies pay attention to the contextual factors that mold and influence African society and have a bearing on the development process. As noted earlier in this chapter’s discussion of the political economy approach, interests (informed by ideas) tell institutions what to do. This was very much the case during the Structural Adjustment Era in Africa in which the interests of the West and the IFIs to expand global free trade (informed by their doctrine of neoliberalism) resulted in a wave of public sector institutional reforms under the banner of New Public Management (NPM). Broadly defined, NPM is “a series of themes aimed at reforming the organization and procedures of the public sector in order to make it more competitive and efficient in resource use and service delivery.”67 In line with the massive spending cuts on social welfare which accompanied the SAPs, NPM was embedded in “economic rationalism” and sought to curb wasteful expenditure by “downsizing” or “rightsizing” what it argued to be Africa’s corrupt and “bloated” civil service as a means of responding to the continent’s macroeconomic failure.68 The “one-size-fits” approach associated with the SAPs was also prevalent within the institutional reform agenda. Mkandawire argues that the institutional reforms that were undertaken during the Structural Adjustment Era resulted in institutional “monocropping” and “monotasking.”69 According to Peter Evans (2004), “institutional monocropping” refers to the “imposition of blueprints based on idealized versions of Anglo-American institutions the applicability of which is presumed to transcend national circumstances and cultures.”70 Much like the prevailing monoeconomics and economic policies of the Structural Adjustment Era, institutional arrangements were simply transplanted from the West within Africa without any thought given to contextual factors or the transferability thereof. In so doing, it disrupted Africa’s learning process by robbing the continent of an opportunity to explore various institutional arrangements and ultimately constructing its own context-specific institutional architecture. In promoting institutional “monotasking,” the institutional reforms in Africa sought to limit the multiple tasks performed by each institution to one.71 By constraining the proliferation of activities that institutions were engaged in, the institutional reforms ignored the broad devel-

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opmental agendas they were previously designed to serve. In so doing, the institutional reforms of the 1980s and 1990s that were implemented in Africa overlooked “the developmental and transformative role that historical and sociological forms of institutionalisms highlight.”72 Moreover, the historical political economic approach also highlights the link between competing “interests” and “institutions” which took place during the Structural Adjustment Era in Africa, in what Mkandawire refers to as “palace wars.”73 The “palace wars” saw various African national institutions at loggerheads, each defending a set of policies that fell within the policy purview with the support of their international complement. In this regard, UN-backed African national spending ministries were often in competition with the IFIsupported finance ministries. Because credence was given to the finance ministries under the reign of neoliberalism, the specialist knowledge of sectorial economists from spending ministries was largely ignored. These palace wars reflected the nature of the institutional reforms of the time which gave impetus to the “restraining arms” of the state—such as the “independent central banks, courts, police, accounting tribunals, [and finance ministries]”—while culling the state’s transformative institutions—which included, “the so-called spending ministries in charge of social services, industry, agriculture, infrastructure, and so on.”74 In sum, institutions played a significant role in maladjusting the African state during the Structural Adjustment Era. As noted, the institutional reforms not only disrupted Africa’s process of organizational and institutional learning, but also stripped the African state of its transformative institutions, thereby substantially curbing its developmental capacity. Instead, African states were left with regulatory institutions that undermined any attempts at pursuing a broad developmental agenda.75 In addition, the downsizing of the civil service which accompanied the NPM reforms drastically reduced the number of civil servants required for African states to effectively rule over their people, “…making [Africa] the least governed continent.”76 In effect, the institutional reforms removed the African state entirely from its own development process and inserted in its place foreign experts and international donors.77 Taken together, institutional monocropping and monotasking as well as the palace wars between African national institutions ultimately fostered departmentalism and a silo mentality within African governments and resulted in disjointed and uncoordinated economic policy responses to the issues of poverty and underdevelopment. This was particularly problematic for African countries since the issues of poverty and underdevelopment fall under the category of “wicked problems.” “Wicked problems” are defined as problems that are deeply entrenched in society, have no clear formulation, and therefore no set criteria to determine when the solution has been found.78 They cannot be solved by using traditional departmental approaches and therefore require a coordinated response that spans multiple governmental departments.79 It soon became apparent halfway through the 1990s that the SAPs had not brought about the anticipated accelerated economic development. Towards

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the end of the 1990s, the World Bank (2005) had acknowledged the failure of structural adjustment to address poverty in Africa.80 Multiple socioeconomic indicators (such as inflation, current account deficit, foreign debt, terms of trade, and social welfare spending) showed the deterioration of Africa’s economic and social standing despite the adoption of SAPs. In those African countries adopting SAPs, many people lost their jobs due to rationalization and slipped further into poverty with the removal of government subsidies on public goods and services such as education, health, and staple foods. Thus, the assumption made by advocates of neoliberalism that social goods were best left to the market had not been realized. More recently, in 2018, the President of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, acknowledged the poor advice imposed on African leaders to prioritize infrastructure investment over that of social services and further encouraged African leaders to invest in their own people: “Your own people are really what you have, and the lesson from South Korea is that if you invest in your people, you will be ready for anything, whatever the world economy [evolves] into, you will be ready to take it up.”81 The Post-Washington Era (2000s–) In the contemporary “Post-Washington Era,” economic thinking is still very much grounded in neoclassical economics. As shown in the earlier two eras, Africa’s economic slump, which was offset by the 1973 oil crisis and exacerbated by the failure of the SAPs, persisted within a context of market liberalization of open trade whereby developed nations exploited Africa’s economic resources through the proliferation of various bilateral and multilateral partnerships. The parochial interests of the superpowers that were prevalent during the Cold War continued their involvement in Africa in the period thereafter— albeit under the guise of bilateral and multilateral partnerships such as “…the EU [European Union] with its economic partnership agreements (EPAs); Brazil, Russia, India and China as linked to the BRICS bloc (with South Africa also as a member); Japan as linked to the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD); China (again) as linked to the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC); and the USA as linked to the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).”82 Under the political economy approach, the interests that superpowers had in gaining access to Africa’s economic resources were given impetus within the above-mentioned bilateral and multilateral institutionalized arrangements. More worryingly though, has been Africa’s uncoordinated response to these bilateral and multilateral schemes, which has opened the door for external powers to exploit the divisions within the continent for their own parochial economic interests. Given that Africa comprises of 55 sovereign states which have not handed over their sovereignty to its supranational body—the African Union (AU)—they commonly pursue their individual national interests when entering into bilateral and multilateral trade negotiations, often to the detriment of the continent’s economic development as a whole. An example of this

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has been the continent’s approach to the EPAs, which has seen EPA negotiations seriously undermine and hinder integration efforts within Africa, particularly at a regional level.83 This begs the question posed by Dawn Nagar (2018), that “if bilateral and multilateral schemes are conducted under the same global operating principles as SAPs, why would a different result be expected—and one of economic growth through open trade?”84 Thus, given the sustained dominance of neoclassical economics within the global economy, if Africa continues to approach bilateral and multilateral trade agreements in a disjointed and uncoordinated manner, thereby allowing external actors to benefit economically at its own expense, then it most likely will not achieve accelerated economic development both in the immediate and foreseeable future. Nevertheless, within the Post-Washington Era, an agreement was reached that a “one-size-fits-all” approach to development in Africa does not work. Considering this, three factors were pinpointed as being important determinants of economic growth. These factors included politics and institutions, infrastructure, and national planning.85 Similarly to the earlier periods, Africa’s economists (now having been trained exclusively in the macroeconomics of stabilization) were not equipped with the required knowledge of development and sectorial economics needed to play a vital role in meeting the demands of Africa’s new expanded developmental agenda: “There were simply no national planners, no industrial economists, no urban economists, no transport economists, no health economists,” as well as no project planners needed to manage the new emphasis placed on infrastructure development.86 Consequently, there has been a trend where African economists have “morphed” into specialists quite overnight without necessarily having the correct qualifications.87 In sum, then, the historical political economy analysis of Africa’s development has shown that superpowers, international donors, aid agencies, and IFIs have contributed to the process of maladjusting the African state by largely disrupting its critical learning process and attempts at regional integration in the post-colonial era. In each era, dominant Western powers and actors—motivated by their parochial economic and ideological interests—have imposed whatever ideas and economic doctrines they deemed appropriate in order to gain access to and exploit Africa’s resources. Having the power of the purse gave dominant Western actors the ability to manipulate African governments into “buying” their development products, thereby leaving African economic policymakers stuck in an endless cycle of capacity building. Consequently, Africa has a poor understanding of itself and its place in the world and is in desperate need of local scholarship to rectify its weak empirical base.88 Consequently, African countries are urged to assume full responsibility for their development by defining and crafting their own development strategies. In so doing, Africans will be able to garner the necessary political will and ensure that development plans are context specific and also flexible enough to meet and respond to individual country’s contexts. In other words, “Africans must think themselves out of the current predicament of the continent.”89 In arriving at a solution which will assist Africa in thinking themselves out of their

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impoverished position and “catch-up” with industrialized nations, Mkandawire draws on the logic of Alexander Gerschenkron’s (1962) theory of late development.90 In his theory on late development, Gerschenkron famously observed that the process of industrialization occurring in one country prior to it taking place in another country was substantially different.91 He referred to this concept as “late development,” that is, “industrialization without the prerequisites for an original industrial revolution.”92 What made late industrializations markedly different from earlier ones, according to Gerschenkron, is the institutional substitutes—“the investment bank, and what others would call ‘the developmental state’”—which late developers used to spur on the process of industrialization by directing development towards higher-wage and higher-technological activities.93 In contrast to Gerschenkron’s theory of late development, neoclassical economists assert that late industrializers wishing to develop need to move through the earlier stages of the industrialization process which include both agrarian industrialization and labor-intensive manufacturing.94 However, Gerschenkron notes in his theory that because industrialized countries already exist, late developers were able to outsource the already available technology and adopt “the most advanced production techniques.”95 In so doing, Gerschenkron argues that late developers are able to bypass the earlier stages of the industrialization process.96 Similarly, Mkandawire contends that the process of development is not linear as neoclassical economists suggests. Development in Africa will therefore require African economies to leapfrog over earlier stages of industrialization.97 In order to “catch-up,” Mkandawire argues that Africans will have to outsmart and outwit their global competitors by seeking and attaining higher levels of education than those previously held by the First and Second industrializers at the start of their development.98 The need for Africans to pursue knowledge reiterates the significant role that ideas play in Africa’s development, outlined earlier in this chapter. In generating knowledge pertinent to its development, Mkandawire asserts that African scholars must take heed of the historical factors and processes that have resulted in the continent’s maladjustment when attempting to devise new solutions to its current state of underdevelopment. This statement underscores the importance of Mkandawire’s historical political economic analysis of Africa’s post-colonial development trajectory.

Conclusion In conclusion, Mkandawire firmly remarks that he does not “…believe that the quest for development [in Africa] is dead.”99 On the contrary, given the events that have occurred in Africa’s post-colonial period, now may be Africa’s most opportune moment to equip itself with the knowledge and institutions necessary to “catch-up” with the developed nations.100 Mkandawire provides five factors which characterize Africa’s only, if not final, window of opportunity: first, the failure of SAPs and the crisis of neoliberalism has provided Africa with

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an opportunity to redefine its development agenda as it sees fit. Second, the “third wave of democratization” has opened the avenue for Africa to explore alternative economic doctrines that differ from the dominant global orthodoxy. Third, Africa is not as heavily financially dependent on Washington as it was in the past given a favorable change to its trade position—between 2001 and 2011, its share of global trade has increased from US$277 billion (2.3 percent) to US$1 trillion (4.6 percent).101 As of 2018, its percentage of global trade has dropped to just under 3 percent.102 Africa’s relatively more favorable trade position offers its economies greater autonomy to pursue strategies best suited for its continued growth. Fourth, Mkandawire points to the increasing role of nontraditional powers as donors in Africa, such as China, who he argues are more supportive of Africa’s “developmentalist” aspirations as opposed to traditional Western donors. On the one hand, and as Mkandawire points out, China’s aid and development financing does promote development in Africa because China is more eager to provide African countries with long-term loans than traditional Western donors. However, African leaders should come together and engage strategically with China, bearing in mind that the short-­ term gains of Chinese aid may not outweigh the potential long-term losses which are associated with Chinese land grabbing, Africa’s growing debt burden, and the rise of racism and discrimination leveled at African people by the influx of Chinese to the continent. Despite China being Africa’s preferred financier, African leaders should bear in mind that China will never prioritize Africa’s economic interests (being that of socioeconomic development) over its own (access to Africa’s vast resources and market). Last, the surge of investments in African tertiary institutions by African governments has given the continent’s academic community considerable autonomy in directing the path of its research. Indeed, Africa has been presented with a chance in which to take the lead in directing its development trajectory. For this to occur, African scholars are urged to trace our historical footsteps and assess how the interplay between various interests, ideas, and institutions will either enhance or hinder our continent’s pursuit of development. By surveying Mkandawire’s contributions to the field of African Political Economy through the analytical lens of the historical political economy approach, this chapter has attempted to make a step in this direction. In this regard, I have argued within this chapter that the various ideas, institutions, and interests and incentives that have permeated throughout Africa’s post-colonial political economy have ultimately led to the “maladjustment” of the contemporary African state. This process of maladjustment has left Africa with a poor understanding of itself and requires African scholars to take this momentous window of opportunity to rectify our predicament. It is now up to present and future academics to take up the baton passed down by seasoned scholars such as Mkandawire and accumulate knowledge which is “reflective and cumulative” in order to avoid falling prey to the passing development “fads” as done by our predecessors.

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Notes 1. Nagar, Marcel. 2019. The Quest for Democratic Developmental States in Africa: A Study of Ethiopia, Mauritius, and Rwanda. PhD Thesis, Johannesburg: University of Johannesburg. 2. Nagar, Dawn. 2018. “Conclusion.” In Africa and the World: Bilateral and Multilateral International Diplomacy, edited by Dawn Nagar and Charles Mutasa, 499–520. Palgrave Macmillan. 3. Mkandawire, Thandika. 2010. “From maladjusted states to democratic developmental states in Africa.” In Constructing a Democratic Developmental State in South Africa: Potentials and Challenges, edited by Omano Edigheji. Cape Town: Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), p. 59. 4. Mkandawire, Thandika. 2008. “Social Sciences and the Next Development Agenda.” Forum for Development Studies 35 (1): 101–117. 5. Ibid., 113. 6. Mkandawire, Thandika. 2010. “From maladjusted states to democratic developmental states in Africa.” In Constructing a Democratic Developmental State in South Africa: Potentials and Challenges, edited by Omano Edigheji. Cape Town: Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), p. 59. 7. Mkandawire, Thandika. 2014. “The Spread of Economic Doctrines and Policymaking in Postcolonial Africa.” African Studies Review 171–198. 8. Robinson, Mark, and Gordon White. 1998. “Introduction.” In The Democratic Developmental State: Political and Institutional Design, edited by Mark Robinson and Gordon White, 1–13. New York: Oxford University Press Inc., p.  3; White, Gordon. 1998. “Constructing a Democratic Developmental State.” In The Democratic Developmental State: Political and Institutional Design, edited by Mark Robinson and Gordon White, 17–51. New  York: Oxford University Press Inc., p. 20. 9. Mkandawire, Thandika. 2014. “Can Africa Turn from Recovery to Development?” Current History 113 (763): 171–177. 10. World Bank. 1981. Accelerated Development in sub-Saharan Africa: A Plan for Action. Washington, D. C.: World Bank. 11. Ibid., 9. 12. Mkandawire, Thandika. 2010. “From maladjusted states to democratic developmental states in Africa.” In Constructing a Democratic Developmental State in South Africa: Potentials and Challenges, edited by Omano Edigheji, 59–81. Cape Town: Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), p. 60. 13. Sen, Amartya. 1999. Development as Freedom. New York: First Anchor Books Edition. 14. Ibid., 3. 15. Mkandawire, Thandika. 2011. “Running While Others Walk: Knowledge and the Challenge of Africa’s Development.” Africa Development 36 (2): 9. 16. Kassam, Aneesa. 1994. “The Oromo Theory of Development.” In Between the State and Civil Society in Africa: Perspectives on Development, edited by Eghosa Osaghae. Dakar, Senegal: CODESRIA, p. 22. 17. Collinson, Sarah. 2003. Power, Livelihoods and Conflict: Case Studies in Political Economy Analysis for Humanitarian Action. Humanitarian Policy Group Report 13, London: The Overseas Development Institute, p. 3.

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18. Grindle, Merilee S. 1999. In Quest of the Political: The Political Economy of Development Policy Making. CID Working Paper 17, Cambridge: Harvard University, p. 2. 19. Ibid., 2. 20. Oatley, Thomas. 2004. International Political Economy: Interests and Institutions in the Global Economy. New York: Pearson and Longman. 21. Gilpin, Robert, and Jean M Gilpin. 1987. The Political Economy of International Relations. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. 22. Mkandawire, Thandika. 2014. “The Spread of Economic Doctrines and Policymaking in Postcolonial Africa.” African Studies Review 171–198. 23. Mkandawire, Thandika. 2008. “Social Sciences and the Next Development Agenda.” Forum for Development Studies 35 (1): 101. 24. Mkandawire, Thandika. 2014. “The Spread of Economic Doctrines and Policymaking in Postcolonial Africa.” African Studies Review 172. 25. Mkandawire, Thandika. 2010. “How the New Poverty Agenda Neglected Social and Employment Policies in Africa.” Journal of Human Development and Capabilities 11 (1): 42. 26. Mkandawire, Thandika. 2014. “The Spread of Economic Doctrines and Policymaking in Postcolonial Africa.” African Studies Review 172. 27. Bashir, Naazish, and Wendy Ungar. 2015. “The 3-I Framework: a framework for developing public policies regarding pharmacogenomics (PGx) testing in Canada.” Genome 58 (12): 527–540. https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/70678/1/gen-2015-0100.pdf 28. Department for International Development [DFID]. 2009. Political Economy Analysis: How-To Note. A DFID Practice Paper, London: Overseas Development Institute. 29. North, Douglass C. 1990. Institutions, institutional change and economic performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 36. 30. Heclo, Hugh. 1994. “Ideas, Interests, and Institutions.” In The Dynamics of American Politics: Approaches and Interpretations, edited by L. C. Dodd and C. C. Jillson, 366–392. Colorado: Westview Press, p. 383. 31. Ibid., 383. 32. Shearer, Jessica C, Julia Abelson, Bocar Kouyate, John N Lavis, and Gill Walt. 2016. “Why do policies change? Institutions, interests, ideas and networks in three cases of policy reform.” Health Policy and Planning 31 (9): 1200–1211. 33. Ibid. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid. 36. Mkandawire, Thandika. 2001. Social Policy in a Development Context. Social Policy and Development Programme Paper Number 7, Geneva, Switzerland: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, p. 295. 37. Kanu, Ikechukwu Anthony. 2013. “Nkrumah and the Quest for African Unity.” American International Journal of Contemporary Research 3 (6): 111–114; United Nations Commission for Africa (UNECA). 2011. Governing Development in Africa  – The Role of the State in Economic Transformation. Economic Report on Africa 2011, Addis Ababa: UNECA; Senghor, Leopold. 1970. Negritude: A Humanism of the Twentieth Century. London: Vintage. 38. Osaghae, Eghosa E. 1994. “Introduction: Between the Individual and the State in Africa: The Imperative of Development.” In Between the State and

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Civil Society in Africa: Perspectives on Development, edited by Eghosa E. Osaghae, 1–15. Dakar, Senegal: CODESRIA, p. 9. 39. Khan, Shahrukh Rafi. 2014. A History of Development Economic Thought: Challenges and counter-challenges. New York: Routledge, p. 19. 40. Ibid., 19. 41. Nagar, Marcel. Forthcoming 2019. The Quest for Democratic Developmental States in Africa: A Study of Ethiopia, Mauritius, and Rwanda. PhD Thesis, Johannesburg: University of Johannesburg. 42. Culley, Lorraine. 1977. “Economic Development in Neo-Marxist Theory.” In Sociological Theories of the Economy, edited by Barry Hindess, 92–117. London: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 92. 43. Mkandawire, Thandika. 2014. “The Spread of Economic Doctrines and Policymaking in Postcolonial Africa.” African Studies Review, p. 174. 44. Young, Crawford. 1988. “The African Colonial State and its Political Legitimacy.” In The Precarious Balance: State and Society in Africa, edited by Daniel Rothchild and Naomi Chazan, 25–66. United States of America: Westview Press. 45. Hargreaves, John D. 1979. The End of Colonial Rule in West Africa: Essays in Contemporary History. London: The Macmillan Press Ltd., p. 41. 46. Mkandawire, Thandika. 2014. “The Spread of Economic Doctrines and Policymaking in Postcolonial Africa.” African Studies Review, p. 174. 47. Ibid., 175. 48. Ibid., 175. 49. Mkdandawire, Thandika, and Charles Soludo. 1999. Our Continent, Our Future: African Perspectives on Structural Adjustment. Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press. 50. Artadi, Elsa V., and Xavier Sala-i-Martín. 2003. The Economic Tragedy of the XXth Century: Growth in Africa. National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Working Paper No. 9865, Cambridge, Massachusetts: NBER. 51. Mkandawire, Thandika. 2014. “The Spread of Economic Doctrines and Policymaking in Postcolonial Africa.” African Studies Review, p. 174. 52. Ibid., 176. 53. Kankwenda, Mbaya J. 2015. “Rethinking the Vision for Development in Africa.” In Africa and the Millennium Development Goals: Progress, Problems, and Prospects, edited by Charles Mutasa and Mark Paterson, 17–32. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield. 54. Mutasa, Charles. 2018. “Introduction: Inspirations and Hesitations in Africa’s Relations with External Actors.” In Africa and the World: Bilateral and Multilateral International Diplomacy, edited by Dawn Nagar and Charles Mutasa, 1–23. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. 55. Ibid. 56. Nagar, Dawn. 2018. “Conclusion.” In Africa and the World: Bilateral and Multilateral International Diplomacy, edited by Dawn Nagar and Charles Mutasa, 499–520. Palgrave Macmillan, p. 502. 57. Mkandawire, Thandika. 2014. “The Spread of Economic Doctrines and Policymaking in Postcolonial Africa.” African Studies Review, p. 177. 58. Ibid., 177.

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59. McGowan, Patrick J., and Philip Nel. 2002. Power, Wealth and Global Equity: An International Relations Textbook for Africa, Second Edition. Cape Town: UCT Press, p. 353. 60. Ibid., 353. 61. Nagar, Marcel. 2015. Democratic Developmental States in Southern Africa: A Study of Botswana and South Africa. Master’s Thesis, Cape Town: University of Cape Town, p. 8. 62. Ibid., 8. 63. Nagar, Dawn. 2018. “Conclusion.” In Africa and the World: Bilateral and Multilateral International Diplomacy, edited by Dawn Nagar and Charles Mutasa, 499–520. Palgrave Macmillan, p. 507. 64. Ibid., 509. 65. Plehwe, Dieter. 2011. “Transnational Discourse Coalitions and Monetary Policy: Argentina and the Limited Powers of the Washington Consensus.” Critical Policy Studies 5 (2), p. 133. 66. Toye, John, and Richard Toye. 2005. The World Bank as a Knowledge Agency. Programme Paper Number 11, Geneva: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), p.  12; Gavin, Michael, and Dani Rodrik. 1995. “The World Bank in Historical Perspective.” The American Economic Review 85 (2), p. 332. 67. Falconer, Peter K. 1997. “Public Administration and the New Public Management: Lessons from the UK Experience.” In New State, New Millennium, New Public Management, edited by Davies et al. Morton, 67–83. Ljubljana: School of Public Administration, p. 67. 68. Hood, Christopher. 1995. “The ‘New Public Management’ in the 1980s: Variations on a Theme.” Accounting, Organizations and Society 20 (2/3): 93–109. 69. Mkandawire, Thandika. 2009. Institutional Monocropping and Monotasking in Africa. Democracy, Governance and Well-Being Programme Paper Number 1, Geneva, Switzerland: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD). 70. Evans, Peter. 2004. “Development as Institutional Change: The Pitfalls of Monocropping and Potentials of Deliberation.” Studies in Comparative International Development 38 (4), p. 30. 71. Mkandawire, Thandika. 2009. Institutional Monocropping and Monotasking in Africa. Democracy, Governance and Well-Being Programme Paper Number 1, Geneva, Switzerland: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD). 72. Ibid., iii. 73. Mkandawire, Thandika. 2014. “The Spread of Economic Doctrines and Policymaking in Postcolonial Africa.” African Studies Review, p. 183. 74. Ibid., 174. 75. Mkandawire, Thandika. 2010. “From maladjusted states to democratic developmental states in Africa.” In Constructing a Democratic Developmental State in South Africa: Potentials and Challenges, edited by Omano Edigheji, 59–81. Cape Town: Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC). 76. Mkandawire, Thandika. 2014. “The Spread of Economic Doctrines and Policymaking in Postcolonial Africa.” African Studies Review, p. 174. 77. Ibid., 174.

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78. Bogdanor, Vernon. 2005. Joined-Up Government. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 6. 79. Ibid., 6. 80. Rodrik, Dani. 2006. “Goodbye Washington Consensus, Hello Washington Confusion? A Review of the World Bank’s Economic Growth in the 1990s: Learning from a Decade of Reform.” Journal of Economic Literature 44 (4): 973–987; World Bank. 2005. Economic Growth in the 1990s: Learning from a Decade of Reform. Washington, D.C.: World Bank. 81. Johwa, Wilson. “World Bank president insists that Africa invest more in its people.” Business Day. May 24, 2018. 82. Nagar, Dawn. 2018. “Conclusion.” In Africa and the World: Bilateral and Multilateral International Diplomacy, edited by Dawn Nagar and Charles Mutasa, 499–520. Palgrave Macmillan, p. 509. 83. Whiteman, K, and T. Bertelsmann-Scott. 2007. Eurafrique? Africa and Europe in a New Century. Policy Advisory Group Seminar Report, Cape Town: Centre for Conflict Resolution; Qobo, Mzukisi. 2012. “The European Union.” In Region-Building in Southern Africa: Progress, Problems and Prospects, edited by Chris Saunders, Dawn Nagar and Gwinyayi A.  Dzinesa, 251–263. London: Zed Books. 84. Nagar, Dawn. 2018. “Conclusion.” In Africa and the World: Bilateral and Multilateral International Diplomacy, edited by Dawn Nagar and Charles Mutasa, 499–520. Palgrave Macmillan, p. 510. 85. Mkandawire, Thandika. 2014. “The Spread of Economic Doctrines and Policymaking in Postcolonial Africa.” African Studies Review, p. 187. 86. Ibid., 188; Foster, Vivien, and Cecilia Briceno-Garmendia. 2010. Africa’s Infrastructure: A Time for Transformation. Washington, D.  C.: World Bank, p. 18. 87. Mkandawire, Thandika. 2014. “The Spread of Economic Doctrines and Policymaking in Postcolonial Africa.” African Studies Review, p. 189. 88. Mkandawire, Thandika. 2011. “Running While Others Walk: Knowledge and the Challenge of Africa’s Development.” Africa Development 36 (2): 20. 89. Ibid., 24. 90. Mkandawire, Thandika, and Ilcheong Yi. 2014. “Overview: Learning from Developmental Success.” In Learning from the South Korean Developmental Success: Social Policy in a Development Context, edited by Thandika Mkandawire and Ilcheong Yi, 1–7. London: Palgrave Macmillan. 91. Austin, Gareth. 2013. “Labour-intensive industrialization and global economic development: reflections.” In Labour-Intensive Industrializations in Global History, edited by Gareth Austin and Kaoru Sugihara. Oxon: Routledge, p. 288. 92. Ibid., 288. 93. Ibid., 288. 94. Gray, Kevin. 2015. “Introduction.” In Labour and Development in East Asia: Social Forces and Passive Revolution, by Kevin Gray, 1–13. Oxon: Routledge, p. 5. 95. Ibid., 5. 96. Ibid. 97. Mkandawire, Thandika, and Ilcheong Yi. 2014. “Overview: Learning from Developmental Success.” In Learning from the South Korean Developmental

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Success: Social Policy in a Development Context, edited by Thandika Mkandawire and Ilcheong Yi, 1–7. London: Palgrave Macmillan. 98. Mkandawire, Thandika. 2011. “Running While Others Walk: Knowledge and the Challenge of Africa’s Development.” Africa Development 36 (2): 14. 99. Mkandawire, Thandika. 2011. “Running While Others Walk: Knowledge and the Challenge of Africa’s Development.” Africa Development 36 (2): 6. 100. Mkandawire, Thandika. 2014. “The Spread of Economic Doctrines and Policymaking in Postcolonial Africa.” African Studies Review, pp. 189–190. 101. Ighobor, Kingsley. 2014. “Trade between two unequal partners: Africa and Europe search for elusive agreement.” Africa Renewal, August: 3–4. https:// www.un.org/africarenewal/sites/www.un.org.africarenewal/files/ Africa_Renewal_August_2014_en.pdf 102. Fin24. 2018. “African economies to grow by 4.1% in 2018 – report.” 17 July. Accessed November 10, 2018. https://www.fin24.com/Economy/Africa/ african-economies-to-grow-by-41-in-2018-report-20180713+&cd=15&hl=e n&ct=clnk&gl=za

CHAPTER 13

Amilcar Cabral, the Theory as a Weapon of the Oppressed and Africa’s Predicament Today Siphamandla Zondi

Introduction In the midst of a terrible drought-induced socio-economic crisis in 1985 that affected more than thirty-five African countries, the continent’s most prominent political economist and head of the Economic Commission for Africa, the late Professor Adebayo Adedeji, penned and presented a paper entitled “The Paralysis of Multiple Debilitating Crises.” In this, he argued that all indications from the first two decades of political independence and the conditions facing Africa in 1985 painted a bleak picture of its future. Too many crises and emergencies had strengthened this negative prognosis. He argued that these crises were mere symptoms of a deeper-seated malaise that afflicted the continent; he admonished African governments and concerned people to look beyond responding to the emergencies and address symptoms. This is because, as he argued, dealing with the roots of repeated crisis “require that we identify fundamental factors behind the Africa development problematique which consists not of one crisis but of a multiple of debilitating crises.”1 The question Adedeji poses requires a paradigm of political economy that seeks to transcend the usual pillars of mainstream political economy perspective. Decolonial approaches have useful contributions to make in mapping out anew the cartography of power that underpins the multiplicity of debilitating crises, one that shifts paradigms in political economy debates.2 It offers ways of explaining S. Zondi (*) Department of Political Science, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 S. O. Oloruntoba, T. Falola (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of African Political Economy, Palgrave Handbooks in IPE, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38922-2_13

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poverty, inequality, underdevelopment, jobless growth, despair, hunger, corruption, and malgovernance in fundamental terms rather than merely in relation to their manifestation on the face of Africa. This chapter seeks to contribute to efforts in search of a fundamental transformation of a euromodern political economy that normalizes inequality and hierarchy as universal logics. A critical part of this is to break bread with the neglected and silenced revolutionary and radical thought born of the terrible predicament that this political economy imposes upon the global South and Africa in particular. This is because we must move from demanding decolonial paradigm shifts to demonstrating the value of thought outside Eurocentrism, in what Lewis R.  Gordon calls shifting the geography of reason.3 At a very fundamental level, the political economy we refer to is essentially a product of thought, of reason, and logics associated with the rise of euromodernity from the late fifteenth century. The most profound responses to it are those that sought to unmask, disrupt, and rebel against its reason, its rationality, and logics. In this case, we look closely at the thinking of the late revolutionary thinker and activist in mid-twentieth-century Guinea-Bissau, Amilcar Lopes da Costa Cabral; it was aimed at ending the tragedies produced by the dark underbelly of euromodernity, manifesting in the form of imperialism, anti-Back racism and colonialism in his context—globalization, neocolonialism, racism, and bigotry in our time. Cabralian thought was born of the need to liberate not just political and economic power but cultural and mental realities as well. Cabralian thought has been the subject of a growing body of analytical literature all designed to understand what Cabral said and meant and the implications of his thought for the on-going struggles for full liberation today. There is work also on Cabralian thought and theories, suggesting Cabralism, which is commendable. This chapter shall draw from that rich literature. The literature on Cabral is big and it focuses on many of Cabral’s writings, but The Weapon of Theory is largely neglected, perhaps because it is thought too short a speech to warrant recognition as a statement of political thought. This chapter distills from Cabral’s The Weapon of Theory essay critical Afro-decolonial theses on the political-economic predicament in Africa today, in the hope that this transcends the dead-ends that mark dominant paradigms on African political economy.4 Cabralian thought is revolutionary also because it confronted the predicament facing Africa as it emerged from colonial administration into independent administration in the hope of marching toward freedom, including economic, cultural, and epistemic liberation. Cabral thought because it was necessary for his active role in the liberation struggle, a struggle against colonialism and imperialism. As we shall show, Cabral understood thought that the material basis of this struggle was only an epitome, a manifestation of a deeper-seated problem. He understood that conditions of colonial domination politically, economically, culturally, and epistemically were underpinned by a deep-seated predicament that needed to be understood and responded to in deeper ways that the logic of merely replacing Whites with Blacks in positions of power.

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The concept of “predicament” or “condition” is commonly used in literature to refer to a plethora of problems and challenges facing Africa/countries. These terms are useful because they denote something deeper than the words “problems” or “challenges” suggest; it is a sort of problem that may appear as many things, but it is in fact experienced as one big issue. Predicament is a multi-faced problem, rather than a multiplicity of problems really. The concept suggests that while these challenges can be named one by one and are many, in many ways they are a set of problems that relate to one or another in fundamental ways. The predicament manifests as poverty, socio-economic and cultural inequality, underdevelopment, unemployment, violence and wars, corruption and abuse of political power, ecological degradation, crass materialism, personalization of politics, dictatorship and autocracy, social dissonance, exclusion and marginalization, and so forth. It is a multi-headed hydra that torments in many ways, yet it has a sense of being one major predicament. Also, this produces debasement for Africa and Africans, but this happens through factors that are not always similar in every country. For instance, debasement is produced through crude colonial economics in the Belgian Congo and through major colonial political reforms that created a sort of a hybrid state of westernized South and traditional/religious north in Nigeria, and so forth. Whatever the many differences between Congo and Nigeria, the forces at play have fundamentally similar features and produce similar outcomes in relation to conditions of Africans and of White elites on both sides. In a 1972 series of lectures, Ali Mazrui uses the concept of an African condition in the sense that the word condition is used in the medical field: to denote ill-health. In the first lecture, he explains his point this way: Let us assume Africa has come to my clinic for varied medical tests on the eve of the 100th anniversary of Europe’s rape of her body and her possessions. I have therefore called this series of lectures The African Condition for two major reasons. One is diagnostic. To some extent this series is about Africa’s aches and pains: what is Africa’s state of health after 100 years of intense interaction with Europe?5

In this sense, the problems we name above are not the condition, but aches and pains that point us to the problem. They manifest an underlying condition that must be treated if Africa is to return to full normality in the family of peoples and continents of the world. The idea is diagnostic, methodologically speaking, in the sense that Aime Césaire suggests in plotting a way to understand colonialism, its impact, and lasting legacy on societies in the global South. In his essay, Discourse on Colonialism,6 Césaire invites us to understand phenomena through a critically diagnostic methodological framework built around asking a specifically profound question about foundations and the true essence of phenomena. The understanding that Césaire establishes in respect of colonialism is an outcome of a deeply critical methodological posture of his study, one that takes us to the foundational logics of colonialism in all its m ­ anifestations

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and legacies. We regard his understanding profound because it reveals something foundational about the problem of colonialism. With specific reference to the predicament he was concerned to understand, the paradox of colonialism and civilization, he posed a deeply critical question that we suggest marks a shift in methodology of critical research and analysis. Having observed that colonialism presented itself as a civilization, but became responsible for highly uncivilized conduct, Césaire asks what fundamentally is the problem with colonialism? Césaire does not ask the obvious question: What problems did colonialism cause? How does it operate and with what effect? Neither does he ask the critical question: What is the problem with colonialism? These are pertinent questions for guiding in-depth research into colonialism as a predicament that confronted Africa in the twentieth century, manifesting in great political, economic, cultural, psychological, and epistemic difficulties. But Césaire poses a question that demands of a researcher to look beyond the manifestations in order to understand and solve the problem that these manifestations epitomize. It is a question, which methodologically points the research toward the fundamentals of the problem at hand, the predicament in focus, and phenomenon under study. So, as a methodological question, the Césairean question takes us a lot further and deeper in our insights on phenomena at the point research is being conducted. It requires digging deeper and deeper and continuously digging into the depth of the predicament in order to understand in respect of its hidden nature. Methodologically, it is about testing the assumption that there is a problem below problems that appear, a mother of problems at hand, the fundamentals of the issue. It suggests that the essence of colonialism can be found via a questioning attitude. Decolonial turn requires that we begin our efforts to understand the African predicament on the basis of fundamentally different questions from the ones commonly phrased in the mainstream about Africa and its troubles. It requires an epistemic rebellion against the mainstream approaches to knowledge about Africa and its condition, which is an act of not just changing the content of the conversation but also the terms of the conversation. It is to wrestle for the control of knowledge and assert the right to know differently, authentically and at our own terms. As Mignolo argues, “in order to call into question the modern/colonial foundation of the control of knowledge, it is necessary to … go to the very assumptions that sustain locus enunciations.”7 If we improvise the specific question, it could be: What fundamentally is the problem of/with governance in this or that area of Africa? It could also be a question posed after acknowledging the huge body of literature that see a lack of “good governance,” neopatrimonialism, and corruption among African leaders and governments as the problem.8 But it would be out of a realization that the dominant discourses debate the manifestations and symptoms that afflict the body of Africa and neglect the underlying reasons for these problems. Another question that could be posed in this effort to shift the geography of reason is: What fundamentally causes Africa’s marginalization in world trade and investment, and other elements of the global value chain? This question

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would be posed after realizing that the dominant discourses eloquently reveal the nature, features, and forms of this marginalization and either blames Africa for being unable to catch up with others or world capitalism. Therefore, these discourses yield inadequate insight into the deficiencies in African political economy. What fundamentally is racism and tribalism today? What fundamentally creates the need for African integration today? Many other questions can be posed that make it possible for us Africans to think a little deeper about African conditions in order to the rethink the African predicament. In our case, our concern is the African predicament that has persisted now for just over five decades, manifesting in the simultaneous failure of politics and economy to guarantee the people freedom from want and freedom from fear. This is the failure to achieve the freedom struggles’ dream of a society in which the people are free indeed, free politically, free economically, free culturally, free epistemically, and so forth. Instead, the people have in their majority experienced conditions that are similar to those that characterized the colonial era. The failure of development in Africa has been a stark contrast to the development of the countries that continued to dominate Africa in neocolonial designs after colonial rule, producing a paradox that Walter Rodney described as the underdevelopment Africa by Europe in the course of Europe’s rise to become a developed region.9 Rodney is part of this epistemic rebellion that we refer to above, revealing how Africa’s difficult predicament on the political economy side was a product of global designs rather than an act of nature, divine interventions or errors of human beings. But the dominant discourses defied paradigm shifts like this as they returned to extraverted discourses that conceal more than they reveal about the persistent problems of poverty, inequality, unemployment, social dissonance, public anger, and discontent. The question—what fundamentally is the African predicament—has the potential to lead us to understand how it came about, how it is scaffolded, and how it is maintained and perpetuated. We are concerned with understanding the foundations of our problem because such understanding is necessary for a radical departure from this to be found, for fundamental transformation of society to happen. The African condition is a pervasive problem that traps Africa in a series of unending problems, and that leads to shattered expectations and deferred dreams.10 It is the fact that the continent seems just not to achieve its liberation and freedom, manifesting in full experience of development, economic prosperity, and enduring stability and security. It is that Africa simply just can’t break out of vicious cycles of difficulties and problems.

Amilcar Cabral and Radical Thought-Leadership In search for answers to this fundamental question, this chapter searches for insights in the work of Africa’s most profound revolutionary thought-leader, Amilcar Cabral. Cabral epitomizes thought-leadership in the postcolonial South, in that he combines both the commitment to thinking or theorizing about change in society and zealous activism for putting into practice this

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r­ adical transformation desired. He was both a theorist for the radical struggle for freedom of the oppressed and an activist leading street actions to bring about freedom. In this way, he weaved together his political biography and his geography of reason. He combined the value and significance of practical activism in the form of political organization and mobilization, on the one hand, and the use of thought that is designed to challenge the conceptual basis of the oppressive system on the other. This is consistent with anti-colonial/anti-capitalist resistance throughout the South. In a magisterial work entitled Weapons of the Weak (Scott 1986),11 Scott shows how peasants undertake insurrections, revolutions, and rebellions in a manner that statistics and mainstream literature on uprisings conceal instead of revealing. He details how in subtle, quiet, and countless of small ways peasants resist, challenge, undermine, subvert, and seek to transform the elite power that oppresses them. Without stating it as such, clearly this work addresses itself to the question: What fundamentally is peasant resistance in areas that show no evidence of open revolt and uprising? Scott’s concern is that the peasants feature when they do something drastic and menacing. They appear only as anonymous crowds behind often elite leaders to whom the successes of struggles are ascribed. Hidden behind the fetish for top leaders, formal organizations, banners, and formal documents, peasants are shown in this book to have effective agency in their subtle forms of resistance, helping to break the back of colonialism and colonial capitalism, and the neoliberal order.12 Scott’s work reveals just why it is important to understand agency at a level deeper than what shows on the surface. The uncovering of their thoughts as weapons in their struggle is much more complex than discovering the range of their actions. Their mundane acts of resistance are either hidden, erased, or diminished in the record. But it is clear from this and other works like Nzongola-­ Ntalanja13 that the agency of the oppressed in transitions and revolutions is much more significant than it is realized. On the basis of insights from extensive ethnographic study of peasants and their resistance, Scott alerts us to the interface between actions and intentions; the consciousness that gives birth to new thoughts and new commitment to actions. In this, the difficulty is that the relationship between thought and behavior or conduct is not a simply linear cause-effect thing. Quite often intentions and thoughts are not achievable. Actors often adjust them in the course of action, thus complicating the thought-­ action interface. Therefore, circumstances and the conditions of the struggle impinge on the relationship between thought and action, theory and practice, in the course of struggles of the oppressed. In the end, Scott discovered just how critical this realm of consciousness and theory is in resistance and revolutions, especially silent revolutions. He also discovered the choices the peasants share, the outlook they have even before and irrespective of practical actions. He concludes, “How, finally, can one understand everyday forms of resistance without reference to the intentions, ideas, and language of those human beings who practice it?”14 In this sense, theory becomes a vital weapon of the oppressed alongside the practices our attention is so easily drawn to. The practical aspect

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is important as an effort to shift paradigms about knowing and practices. The theoretical/thought realm is also critically important in this. It arises from this discussion that in the process of decolonizing thought we also change questions from just what people did to what fundamentally they did in the resistance, which forces us better to understand consciousness acquired as basis of the struggle and/or as an outcome of the same; how this related to what they did and did not do, and complicated dynamics that explain such a relationship. The assumption that theory leads to action is challenged by the very fact that the thinkers-activists often have to acquire both as they act. This leads to theory that preceded conduct and conduct that leads to theory in a complex interface. This is why in this chapter, we seek to understand how Cabral formed his theoretical theses, as part of understanding how revolutionary thought-leaders or thinkers-cum-activists form their consciousness as a source of their conduct and as a repertoire of their experimental actions. We are concerned with the construction of theory from Cabral’s thoughts in a process resembling that of a soldier preparing their spears and shields for their struggle to be free. This requires that we focus on the social givens of the subject’s position in society where conditions that shape the subject’s social consciousness can be understood. The understanding of revolutionary theory as a rebellion against deceit, a disobedience of extraverted discourses that dominate political economy literature and discussions, and as a combative ontology in the manner that Archie Mafeje uses the term. Having rejected the Eurocentric idea of a free-floating signifier, the objective observer-researcher, Mafeje15 argues for an epistemic and ideological position that enables thinkers from the South to demand to be heard in their own terms, on the basis of insights generated by the conditions of the places they study, and to forgo the design to fit in the global, which a euphemism for Eurocentric. Frantz Fanon would call this decision to deliberately and rebelliously adopt revolutionary theoretical insights from the South “combat breathing,” which is to mobilize one’s life energy just in order to survive the violence of imposed orders, to live and merely breathe in the midst of the suffocating omnipresence of the imperial man and his ways. The dominated finds that his history and his “daily pulsation … are contested and disfigured in the hope of a final destruction.”16 This prior negation is what makes shifting the geography of reason by using theory as a weapon a necessity. We intend to use theses that Cabral constructed to guide and rationalize his attitude to activist combat, showing how this is useful for shifting paradigms about Africa’s predicament today. Born on 12 September 1924  in Bafata, a small town in Guinea-Bissau, Amilcar Lopes da Costa Cabral became one of the foremost leaders and thinkers in a global anti-colonial struggle. He also became a thought-leader on fundamental revolutionary change in modern/colonial world society. He founded and led the Partido Africano da Independencia da Guine e Cabo Verde (PAIGC), as a liberation movement to lead the struggles of the peoples of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde to their independence in 1974 after mounting a decade-long multifarious struggle. The organization used under his leadership a c­ ombination

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of mass mobilization against Portuguese colonialism, armed insurrection, and structured political and military campaigns. He would not live to see this moment of victory because Portuguese intelligence agents worked with disgruntled PAIGC members to abduct him on 20 January 1973, later fatally shooting him in the hope that this would deter the liberation movement that had already liberated two-thirds of the territory from continuing with its struggle. But in fact, his death inspired an even more gallant and steadfast fight leading to independence a year later. By the time Cabral was killed, his ideas, theoretical theses, and ideological propositions had already spread well beyond Guinea and Cape Verde, beyond the Lusophone parts of Africa, to most regions of Africa and other parts of the global South generally. He had already theorized and spread his thinking about the shared multi-headed enemy that appears as imperialism, colonialism, capitalism, neocolonialism, racism, and patriarchy. He had traveled extensively throughout the continent and parts of Latin America, Europe, and Asia spreading such theoretical theses as those about building own economies; the liberation struggle and the material lives of the poor and the people; culture and identity; resistance and social transformation; and the predicament of the liberation movement. By the time he was killed, he had already influenced the thinking and strategies of others engaged in struggles for freedom. He had become a household name in the world and a major threat to Portuguese colonial rule everywhere in the world. In the early 1953, he had already been subject to unexplained restrictions of his movement between Portuguese colonies.17 He had already contributed significantly to the major push back against imperialist and colonial force throughout the South, causing a crisis in the empire’s camp, even before the 1973 energy crisis. It is in this context that he comes to be regarded a key figure in the building of the tricontinental movement that led freedom campaigns in Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America, and in Asia.18 This is a movement that needed careful thought to lead and to sustain. It needed ideological clarity and theoretical outlines to enable these various contexts and diverse peoples to find common ground for their struggles. This is the period when the proverbial winds of change forced the colonial system to retreat, rethink, or make concessions to forces of anti-colonial revolutions. Far from the ideal for which freedom movements existed, yet these changes were much more profound than it may be thought. The colonial project could not be sustained on the basis it was conceived. Crude colonial power could no longer be applied without consequences for big colonial empires, especially in the form of brave and organized mass resistance. Cabral thought that the idea of colonialism as originally conceived had become bankrupt just as the colonial economic enterprises had experienced financial bankruptcy in many cases.19 The moral bankruptcy of the idea of colonialism was obvious. These changes thrust the global South into the center of world affairs in ways not foreseen. This demanded innovative thinking and effective cooperation within the South. The need for fresh versions of revolutionary thinking to

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s­upport action in the context of major changes was apparent. The internal dynamics and externalities both called for new thinking about the moment and its implications.20 It was in this that the likes of Amilcar Cabral, Sekou Toure, Thomas Sankara, Aime Césaire, and Frantz Fanon emerged as the voices of liberation. It was at a tricontinental conference in Havana, Cuba, in 1966, that Cabral delivered his groundbreaking essay entitled The Weapon of Theory. This chapter is inspired by this idea of theory as a weapon of revolutionary struggle. It was in the gathering of liberation movements from the three continents of the South that Cabral so simply outlined what were shared challenges and imperatives facing all of them. These theses were a product of his involvement in wide-ranging debates and discussions about how liberation movements needed to refine their strategies and tactics to sustain a difficult struggle in a changing world. These ideas came to constitute the very conceptual glue that held together the tricontinental solidarity movement, and by extension, the radical posture of the global South wherever it remains to this day. It is very important to note that the methodological option of theory as a weapon for revolutionary thought by the subaltern is evident in what he says about the task of leaders of liberation. What he reveals is insightful and potentially groundbreaking for those seeking ways to understand the predicament of the South anew. This is so in two ways. The first is to rescue thought-leadership from the moribund debate marked by theory and action dichotomy by placing the two on the same plain as mutually enriching weapons of revolutionary thought-leadership. Second, it also helps us transcend in this regard the second false dichotomy based on the assumption that the elite are the vanguard of the struggle in their wisdom, and ordinary people and activists only act on these theories. In this way, Cabral invites us to contemplate theory not as a conception of weapons of struggle but as a weapon in itself and conception of strategies for fighting domination at the same time. In this, the theory is as fundamental to the fight for the just cause of freedom then and now, as are actions we take concomitantly. The actions we take are an expression of theory and vice versa, and therefore, none between institutional leaders and the rest of the cadreship of institution are just involved in theory or just action alone.

The Rebirth of the Human In Cabral’s comment on the Cuban revolution and its significance, two things are worth underlining. The first is that he speaks about revolution as the creation of actions taken, especially the physical uprising in 1959, but also as the thought that formed part of that action. The second is that as a result, this revolution sought not just to install a new government and new economic programs but more fundamentally “a New Man, fully conscious of his nation, continental and international rights and duties.”21 A good understanding of this rebirth—the death of the old man colonialism and slavery made out of the oppressed people and the birth of one that attains new consciousness—he

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thought was crucial for understanding why the Cuban revolution had produced successes, not least in the agrarian sector of the economy. We shall return to this later. Therefore, the revolution is about a new life and a new man to be brought about in order to expand such a life among the oppressed. It is theory and action in dynamic interface that Cabral envisaged. This idea of a new man presupposes a human that has a new consciousness, a new embrace of human dignity and rights, and new commitment to fulfill duties humans have toward each other and the earth. The human conceived this way is an intended challenge in fundamental ways to the colonial conception of the human in a dichotomy of beings with rights and privileges, on the one hand, and beings with limited to no rights but lots of unrewarded duties to maintain the system that oppresses him on the other. This is colonial humanism that had given birth to a man that needed rebirth into a new man, in Cabral’s view. He thus proposed an idea that goes beyond the manifestation of the colonial political economy and the many things that could be proposed for fixing and attacks the very ontological logic that is the basis of euromodernity as a whole. It is a common feature of rebellious thought from the South and Africa to consider the problem we face today to be an outcome of the impact of the colonial process on the human. This idea that beyond the fragmentation of the territory, the division of the nation and the bastardization of the economy, the colonial project also dehumanized both the colonizer and the colonized in ways that are yet to be fully eradicated to this day. For the colonizer to drive the transformations of society the way the western man did until the end of colonial administration, he needed a transformation of his own being into an imperial man, a particular kind of human being suitable for the cruel task of conquering, dominating, suppressing, disparaging, dehumanizing, and deceiving other beings outside his “race.” Césaire says that colonization decivilized the colonizer. It degraded him to instincts of violence, race hatred, and cruelty that became the colonized’s experience of the colonizer. It damaged the human being that exalted himself into an imperial man with authority over other human beings in far off lands in ways that persist to this day. This cartography of the power that the poor experience is what Adedeji calls a disequilibrium. The actions of this corrupted human being would produce others as corrupted differently, being dehumanized into sub-beings that are dispensable, disposable, and barely living. It is now trite to state that the colonial project was as much about territorial conquest and economic exploitation as it was about the denuding the colonized of their ontological density, calling into question their very claim to humanity. It was to reduce them from human beings into things, into native, kaffirs, collies, and slaves. The thingification of the colonized gave colonialism its genocidal character. With a political consciousness born of the same circumstances as Cabral, Sylvia Wynter thinks extensively about how the transformation of the modern European into an imperial man is at the heart of modernity’s problems and the problems it created for the subaltern of the world. This took in a series of periods that represented the mutation of a socio-economic vision of the world. In

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the first one, the European man became a Christian man. “On the chain of being,” writes Wynter,22 “he stood between the angels on the one hand and the animals on the other.” In this chain of being, the human can make themselves whatever they wish, either as high as angels or as low as beasts. With the invention of the so-called New World in the sixteenth century, the European man would come to have control over his other. There was what Wynter calls retotalization, in which the Christian man became a western man ruling over the earth not via religious theology but also through secular ideology and theory. The western man became the norm of the man, the man implied in the human story of life, in theology, and in science and theory. The rest of the people were transformed into natives, the lowly other, close to the beasts. Wynter points out that in the European socio-cosmic vision, the world social order resembled the natural order, but in a transformed fashion, so that just as the sun was recognized as the center of the natural order, the West became the center of earth. Thus, just as the non-western lands became the frontier, jungle, and nature, the non-western man became a savage, the heathen, a monster, and a cannibal of the ethnos in this vision and theory of the world. So, “In creating themselves as the norm of men, the western bourgeoisie created the idea of the primitive... they created the idea of their own negation.”23 This created a situation where the native existed as a problem to be managed, caged, controlled, objectified, killed easily, and turned into puppets that mimic the European man, something that manifests also in how we understand the African predicament today.24 It is an existential conundrum in and of itself, one that creates the disaster of mere appearance for the objectified subject. It is this invention of the non-western man as a savage native, a monster Black, and a despised heathen, that needs to be undone or destroyed in the process of redeeming the world from the socio-cosmic vision of death, the secular ideology and theory of dearth by which the non-western man was reduced into a thing, an object in slavery, and a dispensable slave laborer in employment. Ending this coloniality of being must lead to the birth of a new man, “fully conscious of his national, continental and international rights and duties,” as Cabral put it.25 Wynter too refers to the imperative to give birth to a new human through the decommissioning of the super-human and his invented other. It is about the rebirth of the man. Without such, political economy of multiple crises cannot be overcome, because the invented man is designed to maintain and reproduce the colonial order of things.

Shouting in Burning Houses Second, Amilcar Cabral’s scientific observation of struggles and revolutions led him to a simple but profound observation: namely, there are two zones in every struggle—the struggle against the enemy outside (Struggle I) and the struggle against what lies within (Struggle II). There is a struggle aimed at, preoccupied with, seeking to dethrone, aiming to weaken the enemy outside, the system out

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there. This struggle is widely written about and often discussed. It is the most obvious struggle. Volumes of literature at the time had been generated already on the nature of this enemy (imperialism/capitalism/colonialism/neocolonialism) and its manifestation, the conduct and behavior of the enemy, its normative make-up, its strengths and weaknesses. Material had been written on this basis about how to defeat this enemy in different circumstances, how to exploit the enemy’s weaknesses, and how to mitigate its strengths. The enemy is clearly identifiable because it is out there, and it is met at places of encounters, the frontiers of the struggle. This struggle comes up against challenges related to the unequal balance of power, relative strengths and weakness between the enemy and the agents of the revolution, international environment and alliances that are formed by the enemy side. As Cabral says, this is a struggle that was significantly discussed in gathering, written about in the literature and heavily in the minds of activists, leaders, and strategists. Even the program of the Tricontinental Conference was heavily dominated with aspects of Struggle I. This struggle is explicit. The world system has been amply shown by Immanuel Wallerstein and others to be a major enemy for those possessed by a dream of a better life for all. Essentially, global capitalism works to reproduce poverty for many and prosperity for a few and makes normal the exploitative tendencies that enable some to develop by under-developing others. This manifests in an Africa of multiple crises, an economy that is fragmented and marked by narrow structures of production, failed regional integration, and slow build up to continental economic integration (Table 13.1). The second struggle is much more complex and difficult to fight because the enemy is not out there but is within the liberation movement, the fighting force, and the motive forces of the struggle. Whatever its origins and whatever the varied influences that shape it, in Cabral’s terms, this enemy is internalized. This is the struggle that Cabral suggests is “fundamental” though not explicit. “We refer here,” he said, “to the struggle against our own weaknesses.”26 He went on to propose the empirical basis for his observation that leads to this idea as follows: “...our experience has shown us that in the general framework of daily struggle this battle against ourselves... is the most difficult of all, whether for the present or the future of our peoples.” Because the agents of the struggle are fighting for a better future, if they do not win this Struggle II, they risk Table 13.1  Typology of Cabralian two struggles thesis Struggle I

Struggle II

Enemy outside Enemy explicit Fought with arms Fought in outside frontiers of encounter Against designs of distant enemy

Enemy within Enemy less explicit Fought with dialogue Fought within/the frontier is the self Against own weaknesses

Source: Author’s own representation of thesis

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keeping alive to the point where it sabotages the futures that get shaped from time to time. The agents of the struggle became the carriers of the enemy that sabotages the objectives of the struggle. This conjures up a picture of a bewitched person who is focused on battling the external challenges only to find that the victory against them is only half-a-victory because the Struggle II remains unwaged or not won. Cabral goes into indigenous wisdom to draw from it a proverb that represents his theoretical claim; “When your house is burning, it’s no use banging the tom-toms.”27 The metaphor of a burning house in this context is profound, for it suggests that a fundamental weakness in all struggles for freedom is that they have been waged on burning houses. We have been shouting down imperialism in all its manifestations through the windows of a burning house. We have waged armed struggles and international isolation of the enemy in Struggle I while sitting in burning houses. We have hoped and prayed for a new society where the freedom of the human is guaranteed and cherished while looking through the cracks of a burning house’s door. Adedeji points to too much focus on the working of international capital and development assistance both in explaining the multiple crises and in suggesting solutions. He too takes the view of Cabral by saying there are major internal weaknesses that must be overcome. He also argues that self-reliance, collective self-reliance among African countries, was the only sustainable basis for finding solutions.28 “The fight against dependency and disequilibrium,” Adedeji advised, “necessitates a sharp break from Africa’s unenviable colonial legacy and the initiation of a process of structural socio-economic transformation.”29 The former relates to weakening the external enemy’s hold on Africa and is about fixing internal conditions that reinforce the colonial legacy long after colonial rule ended.

Of Locality and Elaboration: Your Hot Waters Must Cook Your Rice The third principle in theory as a weapon is that of locality as the essence of initiative, action, and conduct. It is the principle that emphasizes the importance of the context in giving essence to the character and nature of a thing. Though of potentially universal relevance and application, the phenomenon in the course of social-political action is essentially made significant by local elaboration. All socio-political phenomena needed to have their essence given expression through localization, even when they are similar in different contexts and cases. There is therefore no phenomenon that is complete in essence and expression unless it is placed and/or applied in a local context. All phenomena are essentially local, ultimately either because of their origins or because they have to respond to local conditions and demands. While locality is about the context from which we speak and do whatever we do as part of our agency in socio-political-economic arena, it may be expressed as a local socio-political context of all phenomena. It also gives significance to

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the idea of endogeneity as a paradigm of thought and action. By this we mean that locality establishes the principle of seeing things, expressing things, and exercising agency from where we are, thus bringing to an end the trap of extraverted paradigms and discourses that we are invited to on the pretext that they are universal when in fact they are Euro-American. It is to recognize the context of locality as a reference point that helps frame what is and what is not, what can and what can’t be. This is what endogeneity implies. Secondly, we mean that it is in this context that the indigenous, our particular tools and technologies of our particular history, also get recognition as capable of framing how things are and how they are understood. Cabral employs this double principle in the cause of the Weapon of Theory speech, using an indigenous proverb that reinforces the precept of endogeneity and locality. The saying goes: “no matter how hot the water from the well, it will not cook you rice.” Cabral thus accepts that this principle is one that indigenous Africans have known and operated by for ages. His principles about affirming locality are drawn from indigenous philosophical precepts that have been neglected in the course of the expansion and domination of western modernity. The very idea of speaking through the indigenous African idiom is revolutionary in the context of erasure and silencing of thought outside the realm of the western man; that assumption that no knowledge existed outside Eurocentric rationality, that indigenous ideas and concepts are actually mere primordial tradition. This means locality as a principle of thought and theory is in effect subversion of Eurocentric rationality and its claims to universality. This particular saying makes a simple statement of principle concerning socio-economic-political phenomena, that what well of paradigms, knowledge, and lenses we draw upon must address our local problems, respond to the demands of our locality, from where we derive value ultimately. When such is understood and used, then the international implications and application of such action or thought would not be lost. Our hot well must be of true value when they can cook our rice. Again, it is the principle that Adedeji emphasizes when he cautions about the blind faith in external ideas or ideas brought by “international experts,” when in fact he and others have long identified problems and thought through many solutions as options for Africa. This has implications for our theoretical understanding of agency, in that it means the local is a sure ground from which to build or derive agency. Agency that can be used in our response to the world or problems and opportunities presented is best built on locality of principles, values, and practices. All meaningful acts of agency are therefore fundamentally local and perhaps inspired by the indigenous in our locality. At least, our agency must be inspired by or designed to respond on the basis of the local idiom, practically and metaphorically speaking. Agency finds its essence to the extent that it is born of, derived from, and meant to respond to, the local exigencies. This principle of theory that Cabral suggests also has implications for our tendency to import and borrow ideas, concepts, theories, and practices with little or no modification to make them local. It stresses the need to make

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­ hatever we accept local. The principle is not averse to borrowing or importw ing ideas, practices, and theories, but that the process must be informed by and be based on the principle of locality. We borrow in relation with the demands of and imperatives of locality. The imports are internalized in the basis of how they fit into the framing of things in the locality of things. This is the direct opposite of what Paulin Hountondji30 describes as extraversion, the tendency to import thought, theory, and frameworks of analysis by transforming what is local in order to fit the imported. We often export the elements of raw local data in order to fit them into important complete theories, ideas, principles, and so forth from the West. In this sense, the encounter between the local and imported takes the form of the cracking, the weakening, the subversion, and even the erasure of the former. In this sense, localization requires the death of the endogenous-local and the emasculation of the external. What the principle of locality establishes is the opposite, in that the encounter between the local and external is conditioned by the framing context of the local. Thus, the external converts in the process of assimilation to conditions set by the local/endogenous. It is an encounter by which external and local merge in each other in order to make sense in and fit in the local context. “Africa has to remove the yoke which it fastened on its economic system,” argues Adedeji, “which inhibits the range of natural resources it can utilize, which puts the continent in a straitjacket of producing what its people do not consume and of consuming what it does not produce.” This forces Africa to become an exporter of its locally derived raw material with limited monetary value. This, he argues, is the reason why Africa needs more complete decolonization than it has so far achieved. One of the areas in which Cabral practically used the theory of the oppressed is in relation to agrarian renewal in a Guinea on the verge of independence. We return to the point made earlier about how Cabral connected this rebirth of the oppressed to achieving total liberation from poverty, including through skillful use of the agrarian economy. Cabral was trained in agronomy in Portugal in the 1950s. The sudden death of his father forced him to implement immediately a long-held plan to return to Guinea as an agronomist to engineer socio-­ economic transformation through a combination of stimulating the political consciousness of the oppressed while introducing to them skills of increasing agricultural production. He had decided during famines that hit Guinea during his teens he needed to respond to the tendency of the Portuguese colonial regime to pursue the food self-sufficiency of the metropole at the expense of colonies. As he returned to Guinea, he sought to connect agrarian efforts with bringing the masses of the people to political consciousness. He considered his appointment as an agronomy engineer back in Guinea as a strategic position to pursue this holistic approach to political economy, the rebirth of the oppressed, and the revival of their agrarian spaces.31 The first task of his comrades was to plan and execute an agricultural census in 1953, which he considered an effort to grasp at the roots and features of economic exploitation. The idea was to base every part of the recovery plan on

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accurate scientific information about nature and the character of the political economy inherited. The collection of historical, social, and cultural data was both about agrarian planning and about planning the mobilization of the masses for the revolution against the colonial regime. It was in those years that having been forced out of Guinea, he would team up with former classmates to conduct a study of the soil of Angola in order to plot the agrarian transformation of that colony and also contribute to political mobilization, thus helping to lay the foundations for the birth of the MPLA liberation movement.32 This forced transfer to Angola enabled Cabral “to enrich his dual scientific and political experience.”33 His deep appreciation of elements of Marxist thinking had taught him that the peasant was a crucial motive force of the struggle, but the task was only to mobilize him to the armed struggle but also to empower him to work his land as well. This dualism of the problem and response to it is made plain in Cabral’s poem to Cape Verdean islanders in 1946, even before he exposed himself to Portuguese Marxists. One of the poems was written to the figure of an old woman, which read: “Old Mama, come and listen with me to the beating of the rain there at your gate. It is the beating of a friend that throbs within my heart.”34 Parallels between the rain beating the soil that signaled time to exploit the agriculturally rich land for the people of the land, on the one hand, and the beating of the friends in the colonial context, signaling time to rise up and fight the colonial enemy, on the other. “The friendly rain, Old Mama, the rain which for so long has not beaten like this … the whole island … had in scant days become a garden.” Agrarian allegory is thus used to also drum up revolutionary political consciousness. The idea of the time had arrived, that the land was ripe for planting also meant the time was ripe for the revolution, and both messages were equally important and tied to one another in Cabral’s mind. A crucial part of this is the struggle to return the land to those from whom it was stolen, not just a symbol of dispossession, but as a real economic asset. The census had established the extent of the connection of the peoples of various ethnic and religious affiliations to the land and their livelihood. It had established that the vast majority of peasants were growing important crops such as rice (a cash crop) and cassava (a staple crop), but they did so on land they no longer owned. In Mozambique and Angola, he observed, the people did not even have access to the land because it had become reserved for a small White settler population. These colonies then experienced deeper and deeper economic crisis that the colonial empire could no longer solve,35 something akin to what Aime Césaire calls civilization that creates problems it cannot solve, making it necessary that the whole civilization must then be dethroned for the true liberation of the oppressed to be realized. Therefore, to Cabral, the struggle for the land was the struggle for political and economic emancipation. Thirdly, Cabral’s foregrounding of the agrarian revolution was not out of a choice in his mind. He said, “I may have my own opinion on various matters … an opinion I formed for example in Europe, in Asia, or even in other African

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countries, from books and documents I have read, or because of someone who influenced me. But I cannot presume to organize … the struggle, in accordance with what I have in my head. It must be in accordance with the specific reality of the land.”36 In this case, the reality was that Cape Verde and Guinea did not have a big class of industrial workers, because the Portuguese did not have a sophisticated economy, but instead there was a huge pool of peasants working the land in the countryside. The motive forces were in the countryside, both for the struggle against colonial rule and for the struggle for socio-­ economic transformation. Finally, the struggle for socio-economic transformation was part of the whole theory of revolutionary liberation based on the understanding of historical and current realities in the colonies then. A key part of this was about how to build an economy of the future while fighting the political economy of today. It was about ending the binaries of today’s struggles against enemies and building a future before the present had died. It was a principle that disrespected the logic of sequence and change that happens in a sequence of stages, for it was about the next stage beginning before the current stage of the struggle was over. Cabral understood that the Portuguese would leave at some point, and the liberation movements would be the focus of the poor’s expectations for a good life. Postcolonial transformation will create that gulf between the end of Portuguese tragedy and the birth of the dreamland envision; that interregnum would create problems for the victors in the anti-colonial war. The task was to build unity in struggle while building toward a developed economy that would be a basis of a stronger nation and socially liberated peoples.37

Conclusion The idea of theory as a weapon of the oppressed is central to Cabral’s approach to the struggle for freedom. It is a crucial contribution to the on-going efforts to find out what can fundamentally explain the multiple crises, the predicament that Africa and other parts of the global South have to contend with. It is an idea that is, by nature, a catalyst for shifting the geography of reason, because the idea that theory is a weapon in a combative struggle of a people to claim their self-determination is unusual in mainstream thinking. It suggests that the general tendency to think of the oppressed as capable mainly of taking up arms and taking to the street to fight their battle is an incomplete story because the poor can engage theory in their locality as another weapon in the struggle. The idea is part of that orientation where actors in the struggle are not just activists galvanizing people to the streets in peaceful resistance or to the trenches in armed struggle, but they are also theorists challenging the conceptual basis of the problem. The elements of Cabralian theory outlined above suggest that Africa’s political economy needs constant rethinking in order to shift the focus from emphasis on symptoms to underlying systemic factors that must be resolved if the continent is going to achieve the dream of a better life for all.

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The African Agenda 2063 envisaged a vibrant and inclusive economy and an end to poverty, but this will lead to a shift in how we think about the current political economy of Africa. While the literature covers the practical work of activists, it hardly deals in detail with the thinking that informs and is informed by resistance activities. This chapter attempted to plug this gap by discussing Cabral’s use of theory as a weapon, an instrument in the struggle for liberation in Guinea with general application through the South. The central principles of this idea of theory as weapon are outlined and analyzed with the hope that they can then be applied to predicaments in Africa and beyond.

Notes 1. Adedeji, Adebayo and Senghor, Jeggan Colley. 1989. Towards a Dynamic African Economy: Selected Speeches and Lectures 1975–1986. London: Routledge, 15–38, p. 15. 2. Grosfoguel, R. 2009. A Decolonial Approach to Political-Economy: Transmodernity, Border Thinking and Global Coloniality. Kult-Special Issue: Epistemological Transformation, Fall: 10–37. 3. Gordon, Lewis R. 2011. “Shifting the Geography of Reason in the Age of Disciplinary Decadence.” Transmodernity, Fall, 95–103. 4. Cabral, A. 1966. Weapon of Theory: Address delivered to the first Tricontinental Conference of the Peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America held in Havana in January. https://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/cabral/1966/weapon-theory.htm (accessed 23 August 2018). 5. Mazrui, Ali, 1979. The African Condition Reith Lectures: Lecture 1—The Garden of Eden in Decay. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes. Accessed 2 February 2016. 6. Cessaire, Aime, 1972. Discourse on Colonialism, New York: Monthly Review. 7. Mignolo Walter, 2009. Epistemic Disobedience, Independent Thought and the De-Colonial Freedom, Theory, Culture & Society, 26(7–8): 1–23. 8. Ogbeidi, M. 2012. Political Leadership and Corruption in Nigeria Since 1960: A Socio-economic Analysis. Journal of Nigeria Studies, 1 (2) 1–25; Mwangi, O.G. 2008. “Political Corruption, Party Financing and Democracy in Kenya.” Journal of Modern African Studies, 46(2) 267–285. 9. Rodney, Walter, 1972. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers Ltd. 10. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo, Coloniality of Power in Postcolonial Africa: Myths of Decolonization (Dakar, CODESRIA, 2013). 11. Scott, James C. 1986. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven: Yale University Press. 12. Scott, Weapons of the Weak, p. xv. 13. Nzongola-Ntalanja Georges, 1987. Revolution and counter-revolution in Africa. London: Zed Books. 14. Scott, Weapons of the Weak, p. 38.

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15. Mafeje, Archie, 2011. A Combative Ontology, In Devisch, R. and Nyamnjoh, F.B. (eds.). Postcolonial Turn: Imagining Anthropology and Africa, Bamenda and Leiden: Langaa, pp. 31–41. 16. Fanon, Frantz, 1965. A Dying Colonialism, New York: Grove Press, p. 65. 17. de Andrade, Mario, 1979, Biographical Notes, in Cabral, Amilcar, 1979. Unity and Struggle: Speeches and Writings, New York: Monthly Review, p. xxvi. 18. Davidson, Basil, 1984. On Revolutionary Nationalism: The Legacy of Cabral, Latin American Perspectives, 2 (41), pp. 15–42. 19. Cabral, Unity and Struggle. 20. de Braganca, Aquino; Wallerstein, Immanuel, 1982. The African Liberation Reader, 3 Volumes, Vol 3, London: Zed Press, pp. 3–6. 21. Cabral, Weapon of Theory, no page numbers. 22. Wynter, Sylvia, 1976. Ethno or Socio Poetics. In Benamou, M. and Rothenberg, J. Ethnopoetics: a first international symposium, Boston: Boston University: 78–94, p. 82. 23. Wynter, Ethno or Socio Poetics, p. 83. 24. Du Bois, W.E.B. 1903. The Souls of Black Folks. New York: Start Publishing. 25. Cabral, Weapon of Theory. 26. Cabral, Weapon of Theory. 27. Cabral, Weapon of Theory. 28. Adedeji and Senghor, Towards a Dynamic African Economy, pp. 20–21. 29. Adedeji and Senghor, Towards a Dynamic African Economy, p. 37. 30. Paulin Hountondji, ed., 1997. Endogenous Knowledge: research trails. Dakar: CODESRIA Books. 31. Cabral, A. 1979. Unity and Struggle: Speeches and Writings, Translated by Michael Wolfers, New York: Monthly Review, pp. xxiv–v. 32. Cabral, Unity and Struggle, p. xxv. 33. Cabral, Unity and Struggle, p. xxvi. 34. Poems published in the A Illa newspaper on 22 July 1946 are reprinted in Cabral, Unity and Struggle, p. 4. 35. Cabral, Unity and Struggle, p. 22. 36. Cabral, Unity and Struggle, p. 45. 37. This is the essence of the message of “Party Principles and Political Practice,” in Cabral, Unity and Struggle, pp. 30–55.

References Adedeji, Adebayo, and Jeggan Colley Senghor. 1989. Towards a Dynamic African Economy: Selected Speeches and Lectures 1975–1986, 15–38. London: Routledge. Cabral, A. 1966. Weapon of Theory: Address Delivered to the First Tricontinental Conference of the Peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America held in Havana in January. https://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/cabral/1966/weapon-theory. htm. Accessed 23 Aug 2018. Cesaire, Aime. 1972. Discourse on Colonialism. New York: Monthly Review. Davidson, Basil. 1984. On Revolutionary Nationalism: The Legacy of Cabral. Latin American Perspectives 2 (41): 15–42. de Andrade, Mario. 1979. Biographical Notes. In Unity and Struggle: Speeches and Writings, ed. Amilcar Cabral. New York: Monthly Review.

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de Braganca, Aquino, and Immanuel Wallerstein. 1982. The African Liberation Reader, 3 Volumes. Vol. 3. London: Zed Press. Du Bois, W.E.B. 1903. The Souls of Black Folks. New York: Start Publishing. Fanon, Frantz. 1965. A Dying Colonialism. New York: Grove Press. Gordon, Lewis R. 2011. ‘Shifting the Geography of Reason in the Age of Disciplinary Decadence’. Transmodernity, Fall, pp. 95-103. Grosfoguel, R. 2009. A Decolonial Approach to Political-Economy: Transmodernity, Border Thinking and Global Coloniality. Kult-Special Issue: Epistemological Transformation (Fall): 10–37. Mafeje, Archie. 2011. A Combative Ontology. In Postcolonial Turn: Imagining Anthropology and Africa, ed. R.  Devisch and F.B.  Nyamnjoh, 31–41. Bamenda/ Leiden: Langaa Research and Publishing/African Studies Centre. Mazrui, Ali. 1979. The African Condition Reith Lectures: Lecture 1—The Garden of Eden in Decay. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes. Accessed 2 Feb 2016. Mignolo, Walter. 2009. Epistemic Disobedience, Independent Thought and the De-Colonial Freedom. Theory, Culture & Society 26 (7–8): 1–23. Mwangi, O.G. 2008. Political Corruption, Party Financing and Democracy in Kenya. Journal of Modern African Studies 46 (2): 267–285. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo. 2013. Coloniality of Power in Postcolonial Africa: Myths of Decolonization. Dakar: CODESRIA Books. Nzongola-Ntalanja, Georges. 1987. Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Africa. London: Zed Books. Ogbeidi, M. 2012. Political Leadership and Corruption in Nigeria Since 1960: A Socio-­ economic Analysis. Journal of Nigeria Studies 1 (2): 1–25. Paulin, Hountondji, ed. 1997. Endogenous Knowledge: Research trails. Dakar: CODESRIA Books. Rodney, Walter. 1972. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers Ltd.. Scott, James C. 1986. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven: Yale University Press. Wynter, Sylvia. 1976. Ethno or Socio Poetics. In Ethnopoetics: A First International Symposium, ed. M. Benamou and J. Rothenberg, 78–94. Boston: Boston University.

CHAPTER 14

Adebayo Adedeji: Africa’s Foremost Prophet of Regional Integration Adekeye Adebajo

This chapter makes a claim for the importance of individuals in promoting the implementation of economic ideas through institutions. While the focus is on the ideas that were promoted, I argue that the intellect, character, experiences, and personality of individuals often shape institutions, which can consequently be used to disseminate these ideas to the practical realm of policy. I focus on the impact of the ideas of Nigeria’s Adebayo Adedeji on the United Nations (UN) Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) between 1975 and 1991. Adedeji died in Lagos on 25 April 2018, with his funeral in Ijebu-Ode being attended by two former Nigerian heads of state—generals Yakubu Gowon and Olusegun Obasanjo; the president of Namibia, Hage Geingob; and the former president of Liberia, Amos Sawyer. We assess the role, vision, and impact of Adebayo Adedeji, who is regarded as the contemporary intellectual father of regional integration in Africa (even if his ideas did not always translate into practice), as well as an important institution-­ builder. The chapter seeks to place Adedeji in historical context, highlighting the role that individuals with vision and forceful personalities can play in driving institutions to adopt ideas but also demonstrating the institutional, regional, This chapter builds on Adekeye Adebajo, ‘The Pan-African Cassandra: Adebayo Adedeji’, in Adekeye Adebajo, The Eagle and the Springbok: Essays on Nigeria and South Africa (Johannesburg: Jacana, 2017), pp. 191–204. A. Adebajo (*) Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 S. O. Oloruntoba, T. Falola (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of African Political Economy, Palgrave Handbooks in IPE, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38922-2_14

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and external constraints on the implementation of these ideas, which rely as well on the decisions and vested interests of powerful national governments and other important actors. The chapter further assesses the personal, intellectual, and professional background and influences that shaped Adedeji into a crusading prophet of regional integration and economic development.

A Meteoric Rise: From Prodigy to Professor Adebayo Adedeji grew up in the small south-western Nigerian town of Ijebu-­ Ode under British colonial rule. This experience would leave a fierce anti-­ colonial mark on Adedeji in his later professional career. His middle-class parents were farmers who worked on a cocoa and kola nut plantation and left him in the care of his disciplinarian grandmother ‘Mama Eleja’, an enterprising, shrewd, and determined fish-seller and indomitable matriarch. The precocious Adebayo was an outstanding student who responded well to his grandmother’s constant prodding. His father was also an important influence on the young boy, encouraging his son to study hard. Adebayo’s father, Lawal Popoola Adedeji, made his son work on the family farm during school holidays, impressing on the young boy the importance of the ‘dignity of labour’.1 Adebayo completed his primary schooling between 1940 and 1943 at St Saviour’s, a missionary school in Ijebu-Ode, before undertaking his secondary school education at Ijebu-Ode Grammar School between 1944 and 1949, where the principal S.R.S. Nicolas, a strict disciplinarian, had a big impact on the young prodigy. Adedeji wanted to become a gynaecologist, but the family fell on hard times. His father lost all his savings in a bank collapse, even as a plant disease destroyed the cocoa and kola nut trees on the family farm. Adedeji was thus forced to work as a researcher from 1950—at the age of twenty—with the West Africa Institute for Social and Economic Research, and thereafter with the Department of Lands in Ibadan. While working, Adebayo bought textbooks and taught himself Economics, History, British Constitution, and Geography, passing all four Advanced Level subjects in 1952. He was then selected among an elite group of twenty students to be trained in the Western and Eastern Region governments. Adedeji resigned from the Lands Department in 1953 to obtain a one-year diploma in Local Government Administration at the University College, Ibadan: Nigeria’s first university. He thereafter worked as an Assistant District Officer in the Western Region’s Ministry of Local Government in Abeokuta. Adedeji later won a Western Region government scholarship to study economics and public administration at the University of Leicester in England, where he became president of the university’s Economic Society, and married Aderinola Ogun in 1957. Three years later, he studied for a master’s degree in Public Administration from Harvard University in the United States, before obtaining a doctorate in Economics from the University of London in 1967.2 Adedeji returned to Nigeria in 1958—two years before the country’s independence from British rule—to take up a post as Assistant Secretary in the

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Western Region’s Ministry of Economic Planning in Ibadan, working twelve-­ hour  days under some of Nigeria’s most respected administrators such as Simeon Adebo and Peter Odumosu. Here, he was widely recognised as a rising star but also had a fearsome reputation among more junior civil servants. By this time, the Muslim ‘Brother Razaki’ had converted to Christianity. Adebayo was transferred to the Western Region Ministry of Finance, and by the age of thirty-one, he was already one of the principal advisers to the regional government’s Finance Minister, Oba C.D. Akran. In 1963, Adedeji—who had always described himself as a ‘reluctant civil servant’—left government service to take up an academic post at Nigeria’s University of Ile-Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University). Four years later, he had become a full professor of economics and public administration at the age of thirty-six. During his tenure, he transformed the university’s Institute of Administration—as its Director—into an effective training ground for both Nigerian and African public servants.3

Regional Integration and Economic Development In 1971, at the age of forty, as he was about to begin a sabbatical at the University of Michigan in the United States, Adedeji was appointed Nigeria’s Minister of Economic Reconstruction and Development by the military regime of General Yakubu Gowon. He would help oversee the country’s difficult post-­ war rebuilding efforts. Nigeria’s civil war of 1967–1970 had resulted in one million deaths and led to the destruction of much of the country’s infrastructure, particularly in the secessionist Eastern Region. The discovery of large oilfields propelled Nigeria into the ranks of the world’s largest oil exporters. Along with other cabinet colleagues and powerful mandarins, Adedeji crafted and implemented a five-year national development plan (1970–1974) that called for rapid industrialisation and resulted in the building of dual carriageways, flyovers, and electricity pylons across the country. He was also the founder and first chair of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), a programme to forge national integration and cohesion by sending the country’s university graduates to different parts of the country to work and undertake community service. Adedeji is widely regarded as ‘the father of ECOWAS’, the Economic Community of West African States. In 1970 he outlined a vision for regional integration in West Africa in an academic article published in the Journal of Modern African Studies, which identified six priority areas: facilitating the free movement of people, goods, and services; building a regional road network; creating a regional airline; establishing regional infrastructure to facilitate trade and investment; creating a clearing and payments union; and abolishing foreign exchange controls.4 Adedeji then turned theory into practice. While serving as Nigeria’s Minister of Economic Reconstruction and Development, he convinced fifteen other West African leaders to establish ECOWAS, following tireless ‘shuttle diplomacy’ between 1972 and 1975 with his Togolese counterpart, Henri Dogo, across the West African sub-region.

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He later captured these efforts in a memorable 2004 chapter ‘ECOWAS: A Retrospective Journey’, in which he described his painstaking initiatives, engaging in lively intellectual battle with Senegalese leader, Léopold Senghor, who sent him ‘down’ to his prime minister, Abdou Diouf, for criticising the poet-­ president’s francophilia, while surprisingly crediting Ivorian president, Félix Houphouet-Boigny, with bridging West Africa’s historical francophone-­ anglophone divide, which was crucial to the establishment of ECOWAS.5 Adedeji thereafter consistently argued that regional integration must be seen as an instrument for national survival and socio-economic transformation.6 In 1975, Adedeji became executive secretary of the Addis Ababa-based UN Economic Commission for Africa. The ECA had been established in 1958 to tackle issues of economic integration, industrialisation, transportation, commodity price stabilisation, human capacity development, social aspects and financing of development, as well as improving statistical data and research in Africa.7 Adedeji’s sixteen-year tenure in office became the organisation’s longest and most dynamic: he converted the ECA into a pan-African platform to continue his efforts to promote economic integration, leading to the creation of the Preferential Trade Area (PTA) for Eastern and Southern African States in 1981 (which later became the Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa [COMESA] in 1993) and the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) in 1983.8 Adedeji, who frequently worked 18-hour days, collaborated closely with successive Organisation of African Unity (OAU) secretaries-­general in Addis Ababa, and became a confidant of and economic adviser to many African leaders, whom he met and addressed at annual continental summits. Adedeji’s intellectual beliefs, like those of the executive director of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America, Raùl Prebisch (1950–1963),9 were based on his analysis that Africa could not achieve economic growth as long as it did not develop national self-reliance radically to transform the continent’s inherited colonial production structures, which had been built on the export of raw materials. He thus advocated an Africa-centred development paradigm with massive socio-economic transformation preceding and accompanying economic growth. Adedeji often focused on the need for Africa to rediscover a sense of cultural self-confidence in order to overcome its psychological dependence on its former European colonial masters. He criticised the discipline of development economics as focusing excessively on economic growth, rather than human development, and noted that its ideas were based on the experiences of industrialised countries, and thus not directly applicable to the African context. He condemned the obsession of the ‘two-gap model’ (which held that the lack of domestic savings or import purchasing capacity restricted foreign investment and development), arguing instead that foreign capital and foreign aid reinforced Africa’s socio-economic dependence and had helped to create the continent’s external debt burden of US$250 billion by 1989. These ideas, which were controversial at the time, have since become more mainstream. Adedeji was also critical of African economists who championed what he

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regarded as the blind imitation of inappropriate Western models.10 The context for his analysis was Africa’s experience of shortfalls and negative growth in agricultural output and commodity exports between 1960 and 1975. He thus surmised that the continent’s embrace of orthodox economic theories had resulted in declining growth rates, lack of diversification, and negligible self-reliance.11

Battling the Bretton Woods Institutions Adedeji established a reputation for being a pragmatic economist more interested in solving problems than being constrained by ideological straitjackets. His most bruising intellectual battles were with the Bretton Woods institutions: The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). He led the ECA to develop in 1976 a ‘Revised Framework of Principles for the Implementation of the New International Economic Order’. This document provided the theoretical foundation for the subsequent Monrovia Strategy of 1979, the Lagos Plan of Action (LPA), and the Final Act of Lagos (FAL), both of 1980. The focus of this quartet of reports—produced with teams of largely African economists at the ECA and in consultation with African policymakers—reflected Adedeji’s core intellectual concern with the concepts of ‘economic decolonisation’ and ‘self-reliance’. He firmly believed that economic growth must be accompanied by social justice and equity.12 The ECA’s Revised Framework of 1976 called for more African expertise to promote socio-economic development and a move away from orthodox prescriptions on the efficacy of international trade as an engine for growth and social change. Adedeji argued against African countries continuing to export one or two primary products and importing consumer goods, as this increased the continent’s external dependence. He also had a passion for national planning as well as for building a more effective and developmental state, which could allocate resources more rationally. Adedeji criticised Africa’s failure to prioritise indigenous factor inputs, its over-reliance on foreign exchange from exports for these inputs, and the lack of participation by Africa’s masses in production and consumption processes. The ECA’s Revised Framework also advocated greater self-reliance; the acceleration of internal processes of growth and diversification; and the eradication of unemployment and mass poverty to achieve a more equitable distribution of income. Self-sustainability was meant to bring about processes of development in which different components would mutually support each other, become linked to internalising demand and supply processes, and generate its own internal dynamic. At the core of this approach, domestic, sub-­ regional, and regional markets would replace foreign markets. The four pillars of development in this framework were thus self-reliance, self-sustainability, the democratisation of the development process, and more equitable distribution of the benefits of development. ‘Developmental regionalism’ was thus to be combined with ‘developmental nationalism’.13

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In a process led by Adedeji’s ECA, the Revised Framework was incorporated into the Monrovia Strategy in 1979 with input from African development and planning ministers. The ‘Lagos Plan of Action for the Economic Development of Africa 1980–2000’ was adopted a year later by African heads of state. Both documents stressed many of the same points as the Revised Framework and sought to flesh out the intra-sectoral and inter-sectoral linkages required to develop Africa’s agricultural and industrial sectors, as well as identify the need to involve Africa’s evolving sub-regional bodies in development plans. The LPA identified seven strategic sectors for Africa’s development: food and agriculture, industry, natural resources, human resources, transport and communications, trade and finance, and energy. The end goal would be an African Common Market, resulting in an African Economic Community (AEC).14 Eleven years later, African leaders agreed in Abuja in 1991 to establish an African Common Market by 2023 (a date later pushed back to 2028). The World Bank’s report Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Agenda for Action—overseen by American economist Elliot Berg—was published in 1981, a year after the Lagos Plan of Action. Curiously, African finance ministers had asked the World Bank to prepare the report despite their leaders having endorsed the LPA. Adedeji described the World Bank document as the ‘antithesis’ of his own plan, since its emphasis was on the external market and on continuing Africa’s export-oriented trade, with agricultural exports being perceived as the engine for Africa’s economic development. Where Adedeji stressed regional interdependence, the World Bank emphasised global interdependence. The Agenda blamed Africa’s trade and exchange-rate policies for the continent’s weak incentives for exports and did not place the same emphasis as Adedeji on the deteriorating external environment in which commodity markets had collapsed. Though African heads of state at the OAU rejected the World Bank’s Agenda, and insisted on implementing the Lagos Plan of Action, the process revealed the continent’s powerlessness. African governments had agreed on the first ever ‘home-grown’ continental development plan in 1980 but then called on the main funders of the World Bank to abandon their own blueprint in favour of an African strategy. The failure of external donors to do so inevitably led to the demise of the LPA. Adedeji further used the ECA to launch the most sustained assault on the Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) implemented from the 1980s by the World Bank and the IMF. African governments had accumulated massive debts, following the oil crises and economic recession of the 1970s and early 1980s, forcing thirty-five countries to accept the tough conditions set by these institutions in order to obtain loans. These conditions usually involved deep cuts in social spending in vital sectors such as education and health. Adedeji ridiculed the Bretton Woods institutions for their attempt to claim success from SAPs despite all evidence to the contrary. He noted that despite the implementations of the SAPs, Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP) had, by 1988, declined from 2.7 per cent to 1.8 per cent; investment ratios had fallen from 20.6 per cent to 17.1 per cent; budget deficits had increased from 6.5 per

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cent to 7.5 per cent of GDP; and the ratio of debt service to export earnings had risen from 17.5 per cent to 23.4 per cent.15 He scathingly criticised the World Bank for raising questions about the neglect of the institutional dimensions of development and the importance of domestic long-term visions and external factors only after its policies had failed. These policies caused widespread economic hardship across Africa,16 as the continent once again became a giant laboratory for socio-economic experiments by Western alchemists. Adedeji coined the widely used term ‘the lost decade’ to describe Africa’s rapid decline in the 1980s as GDP per capita fell by 2.6 per cent annually, the continent’s share of world output and trade stood at 1 per cent, and armed conflicts proliferated in countries such as Uganda, Ethiopia, Angola, Mozambique, and Somalia. He argued against what he regarded as the Bretton Woods institutions’ approach of ‘growth without development’ and the export-­ led integration of African states into the world economy on massively unequal terms. Adedeji stressed the need for Africa to use its own resources to promote greater intra-African growth, prioritising agriculture, the sector in which about 70 per cent of Africans found employment.17 Adedeji led the development by the ECA of Africa’s Alternative Framework to Structural Adjustment Programmes for Socio-Economic Recovery and Transformation (AAF-SAP) of 1989, which was the first comprehensive alternative to the SAPs and which all members of the UN General Assembly except the United States endorsed. The framework called for policy action in four key areas: strengthening and diversifying productive capacity; improving levels and distribution of income; radically changing patterns of expenditure; and creating appropriate institutional frameworks to support the adjustment of African economies in transformative ways.18 The framework further sought to end the dichotomy between short-term crisis management through adjustment programmes and long-term development goals. Consistent with the Lagos Plan of Action of 1980, the AAF-SAP advocated a revision of the structure of production and demand and urged African governments to refocus on domestic development and the optimal use of indigenous factor inputs.19 This effort was different from the Lagos Plan of Action, in that, rather than being solely a ‘home-grown’ African plan, it sought international consensus and support, even that of the World Bank and the IMF, by setting up an international advisory board. A critical lesson had thus been learnt: it was not enough to win the battle of ideas. Africa also had to have the power and resources to implement these ideas. This time, the World Bank responded more constructively. Three months after the AAF-SAP was published, the Bank produced in 1989 the report Sub-­ Saharan Africa – From Crisis to Sustainable Growth: A Long- Term Perspective Study, which sought to achieve synergy with the African Alternative Framework. Adedeji would later describe the World Bank report as ‘a major contribution to the emergence of common ground in laying the basis for concerted action in forging a brighter future for Africa’.20 Though there were still some areas of disagreement between the ECA and the World Bank, the latter was now

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­ repared to admit that it might have been wrong in some of its assumptions p about SAPs, and it did not have all the answers to Africa’s development challenges. Despite the publication of this report, however, the operational and lending arms of the World Bank and IMF still continued with the implementation of the SAPs as they had before, without properly considering their social costs (particularly on Africa’s health and education sectors) and without properly consulting African governments and other continental actors.21

Adedeji: An African Cassandra? Adedeji also led efforts to craft the 1990 African Charter for Popular Participation in Development and Transformation.22 He often challenged what he regarded as Africa’s ‘mindless imitation’ of Western development models and pushed instead for a human-centred view of development and integration, which involved the full participation of Africa’s then 800 million citizens. S.K.B. Asante, the renowned Ghanaian political economist who wrote a book on Adedeji’s development strategies in 1991, described him as an ‘African Cassandra’: a visionary prophet who saw the future clearly, but whose prophecies often went unheeded until it was too late.23 In the end, the World Bank and IMF reversed the large cuts in education and health spending that had decimated Africa’s socio-economic sector in the 1980s and 1990s. Debt relief also became fashionable more than a decade after Adedeji had warned about the unsustainability of Africa’s US$250 billion external debt in the 1980s. Critics have noted that Adedeji’s Lagos Plan of Action lacked a practical mechanism for achieving its objectives, as well as a timetable and detailed assessment of the costs for implementing these ideas. The LPA also failed to provide quantitative linkages between sectors and sub-sectors.24 Adedeji’s calls for self-reliance were further criticised as vague and impractical, and some critics regarded as foolhardy what they saw as efforts to delink Africa from the global economy. Furthermore, the LPA had some African critics. During a Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) conference with the ECA in 1982, several authors castigated the plan for being quiet or ambiguous on such issues as communal versus private ownership of land, the need to define how to prioritise agricultural and industrial exports, and the role of foreign investment in development. African scholars further criticised the LPA as having been naive about state agricultural policies in Africa, for ignoring the class dimensions of governing regimes on the continent and for assuming that African leaders were interested in promoting the welfare of their own citizens.25 Other critics like the Financial Times dismissed Adedeji’s ideas as ‘statist’.26 These criticisms partly reflected the fact that the LPA was a political consensus document adopted by all of Africa’s fifty governments. While the plan was accepted by the OAU, it was, however, ultimately left to gather dust on the shelves of African development ministries, as the continent lacked the resources to pay for its implementation.

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Describing Adedeji’s tenure at the ECA, Kenyan scholar Gilbert Khadiagala argued that his leadership ‘did not entirely transform the institution into an autonomous source on African ideas on development’. Khadiagala further noted that divergent national practices and Africa’s declining international leverage ultimately led, instead, to the widespread adoption of the World Bank’s SAPs.27 Even in terms of regional integration—the idea with which Adedeji is most closely associated—bodies like ECOWAS, COMESA, and ECCAS have failed to achieve their integration goals, and, in 2019, only about 12–15 per cent of Africa’s trade was still conducted among its own countries. Adedeji himself conceded in 2004 that ‘no effective integration has taken place in ECOWAS’, arguing that politics and not economics would ultimately determine the success of regional integration efforts in Africa.28 Like Prebisch in Latin America, a frustrated Adedeji later lamented the inability of African governments to match their rhetoric with reality.29 African leaders provided rhetorical political support to Adedeji’s development ideas, but they often lacked the domestic discipline to implement them, and, more importantly, the external technical and financial resources suggested by the plans were not provided by foreign donors.

Adedeji in Semi-Retirement: Regional Integration, Democratic Governance, and Regional Hegemons After retiring from the ECA in 1991, Adedeji continued his regional integration efforts in Africa: he served on a committee to review the ECOWAS treaty in 1992; he was on another body to transform the OAU into the African Union (AU) in 2002; and in 2007 he chaired the committee which audited the five-­ year integration efforts of the AU. The December 2007 audit of the AU called for an acceleration of regional integration on the continent, and it made concrete recommendations for strengthening the AU and Africa’s sub-regional bodies.30 The report further advocated strengthening national mechanisms to accelerate economic integration; incorporating decisions of regional bodies into national institutions; adhering to the AU decision to recognise only eight Regional Economic Communities (RECs); focusing the RECs on activities to create an African Common Market and African Economic Community by 2028; and strengthening the AU’s internal mechanisms for more effective coordination and harmonisation of the RECs.31 By the time Adedeji retired from the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM)—a plan strongly pushed by South Africa’s president, Thabo Mbeki, with its secretariat in Midrand—in July 2010, thirty African countries had signed up for the APRM review (forty members in February 2020) and twentythree governments had gone through the process, which Adedeji chaired between July 2007 and July 2010. Under the APRM process, each country prepares a national programme of action after undertaking a self-evaluation, which involves government officials, civil society, and the private sector. The

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APRM Panel of Eminent Persons then submits a country review report to help African governments identify institutional, policy, and capacity weaknesses, before recommending remedies for these shortcomings. The peer review mechanism is intended to encourage countries to adopt sound policies, priorities, and standards for political, economic, development, and sub-regional and continental integration through shared experiences.32 The mechanism was thus not crafted as a punitive process to impose sanctions on errant governments, but later as an inclusive and voluntary process to assist a country’s own development efforts. Adedeji was the lead panellist of the South African APRM country review process, which took place between 2005 and 2007. The Country Review Report, which was released in 2007, acknowledged the country’s political and economic progress, but it criticised the slow pace of socio-economic transformation and growing inequalities, cautioning about the growing threat of xenophobic attacks in the country.33 Like the proverbial ostrich that buries its head in the sand, the notoriously thin-skinned government of Thabo Mbeki strongly objected to the report’s criticisms, arrogantly and irresponsibly dismissing the xenophobic threat as ‘simply not true’.34 Adedeji would once again prove to be a Cassandra: in May 2008, 62 foreigners were killed in South Africa and about 100,000 people displaced in horrific attacks against foreigners. Between 2008 and 2015, an estimated 3500 largely African migrants were killed in similar attacks in South Africa. Having edited in 1996 a book called South Africa in Africa: Within or Apart?, which recognised the country’s pivotal role in promoting regional integration on the continent,35 Adedeji later set out his views on South Africa’s political economy in 2007 in a chapter titled ‘South Africa and Africa’s Political Economy: Looking Inside from the Outside’. In it, he reviewed South Africa’s political economy within the broader African context. Adedeji called for South Africans to ‘deconstruct’ their colonially inherited political economy, and he cautioned the country not to pursue the timid approach of other post-colonial African states that had failed to transform their colonial inheritance. He lamented the abandonment by the South African government, under pressure from external financial actors like the World Bank and IMF as well as foreign investors, of the more socially activist Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP)—implemented from 1994—for the more conservative Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) macroeconomic strategy— adopted in 1996. He called, instead, for an effective and equitable ‘developmental state’ in South Africa that would reduce social inequalities.36 Adedeji was equally scathing in his criticisms of his own country, observing in relation to Nigeria’s declining global standing in 2004: ‘No country that is confronted with a long period of political instability, economic stagnation, and regression, and is reputed to be one of the most corrupt societies in the world, has a moral basis to lead others. If it tries to, it will be resisted’.37 The scholar-­ technocrat had turned down the chance to become Nigeria’s foreign minister in 1975, agreeing instead to chair a landmark review of his country’s foreign

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policy.38 He also turned down the chance to head Nigeria’s interim ­government after the annulment of democratic elections by the military in June 1993, but he agreed to serve as a member of the country’s National Political Reform Conference set up to chart Nigeria’s political future in 2005. While many countries would have grasped the opportunity for such a distinguished international figure to lead them, Adedeji’s attempt to secure the presidency of Nigeria after retiring from the ECA in 1991 proved unsuccessful. Nigerian politics remain dominated by military generals, moneybags, and mediocrity: no Nigerian leader in forty-seven years had entered State House with a university education until Umaru Yar’Adua in May 2007. Adedeji effectively announced his retirement from public life at the AU summit in Kampala in July 2010 after over five decades of dedicated service to the continent. The earlier tributes paid to him by three African elder statesmen are worth recalling as they illustrate his immense contributions to regional integration and development in Africa. Nigeria’s General Yakubu Gowon—in whose cabinet Adedeji had served for four years—described him as ‘a very practical and dynamic man who could hold his own in any place anywhere in the world’; Senegal’s Abdou Diouf called Adedeji ‘a man who has played a considerable role in propagating an authentically African way of thinking about economic and social development’; while Zambia’s Kenneth Kaunda noted that ‘Africa will forever be grateful to him for the analytical and objective approach that he has adopted in his work’.39 In a 2006 book, Adedeji was named among the world’s fifty leading thinkers on development in a list that stretched back to such figures as Karl Marx.40 It is often said that no prophet is honoured in his own land. Nigeria’s Cassandra has been no exception. Adedeji was not given the opportunity to lead Nigeria, but his country and continent owe a great debt of gratitude to one of their most accomplished intellectuals and public servants.

Concluding Reflections Adedeji was widely regarded as the intellectual ‘father of African integration’. He challenged Western-dominated conventional wisdom and won the support of his continent through his courageous policy battles with more powerful international adversaries, led by the World Bank and IMF. He emerged as a major world figure, but, ultimately, he was a tragic prophet whose visions for regional integration and development went largely unfulfilled. Regional integration in Africa was concerned with promoting economic development in countries with largely illiterate populations, weak infrastructure, and poor governance. Adedeji did have a keen political understanding of what regional governments would support and championed the idea of ‘home-grown’ development and notions of self-reliance built on the specific experiences of African countries, as well as on regional ownership of these ideas. Even the most corrupt and venal African governments saw the importance of the ideas championed by

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Adedeji. He consistently sought private sector participation in his regional ­initiatives, acting as a public intellectual who often wrote his own speeches and sought to appeal directly above the heads of national governments to broader audiences in universities, think tanks, the private sector, and other forums. He employed impressive communication skills to explain complicated economic ideas, turning the ECA into an intellectual think tank where he and his staff could develop plans to transform the global economic system in ways that addressed the acute disadvantages of their own continent. Adedeji travelled the length and breadth of Africa to try to understand the problems of regional integration and development through lived experiences. He insisted on excellence and hard work from his bureaucrats and enjoyed generating new ideas. He also realised that he had to relate such concepts to practical action and muster political support to implement his vision. He acted as a technocrat working behind the scenes in a powerful bureaucracy. He shared an aversion to the operation of blind market forces and regarded politics as inseparable from economics. Adedeji regarded regional integration as a means to promote peace and socio-economic development. He was a far-sighted visionary who often saw the future more clearly than the leaders he sought to advise. In the end, he failed to achieve his vision and never lived to see his aspiration for an African Common Market fulfilled. Adedeji turned out to be a visionary Cassandra: his calls for Africa to focus more on its own development priorities, for the health and education cuts imposed by the Bretton Woods institutions to be reversed, and for the debt crisis to be urgently addressed, while often turning out to be correct, went unheeded until it was too late. If he failed to achieve his goals, it was a heroic failure born not of lack of ambition or application, but of power.

Notes 1. I have relied on the entertaining biography by Temilolu Sanmi-Ajiki, Adebayo Adedeji: A Rainbow in the Sky of Time (Lagos: Newswatch Books, 2000). 2. The information in the above two paragraphs have been summarised from ‘The Order of the Funeral Service of Professor Adebayo Adedeji’, 6 July 2018, pp. 19–20. 3. Sanmi-Ajiki, Adebayo Adedeji, pp. 110–122. 4. Adebayo Adedeji, ‘Prospects for Regional Economic Cooperation in West Africa’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 8 July 1970, pp. 213–231. 5. See also Adebayo Adedeji, ‘ECOWAS: A Retrospective Journey’, in Adekeye Adebajo and Ismail Rashid (eds.), West Africa’s Security Challenges: Building Peace in a Troubled Region (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 2004), pp. 21–49. 6. See Adebayo Adedeji (ed.), Africa within the World: Beyond Dispossession and Dependence (London: Zed Books, 1993); S.K.B. Asante, African Development: Adebayo Adedeji’s Alternative Strategies (Ibadan: Spectrum, 1991); Reginald Cline-Cole, ‘Adebayo Adedeji’, in David Simon (ed.), Fifty Key Thinkers on Development (Oxford and New  York: Routledge, 2006); Bade Onimode and

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Richard Synge (eds.), Issues in African Development: Essays in Honour of Adebayo Adedeji at 65 (Ibadan: Heinemann, 1995); and Bade Onimode et al., African Development and Governance Strategies in the 21st Century: Looking Back to Move Forward. Essays in Honour of Adebayo Adedeji at Seventy (London and New York: Zed Books, 2004). 7. Adedeji, ‘ECOWAS: A Retrospective Journey’, p.  234. See also Adebayo Adedeji, ‘The Economic Commission for Africa’, in Adekeye Adebajo (ed.), From Global Apartheid to Global Village: Africa and the United Nations (Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press 2009), pp. 373–398. 8. Adedeji, ‘The Economic Commission for Africa’, pp. 373–398. 9. See the insightful biography by Edgar J. Dosman, The Life and Times of Raùl Prebisch, 1901–1986 (McGill: Queen’s University Press, 2008). 10. Adebayo Adedeji, ‘The ECA: Forging a Future for Africa’, in Yves Berthelot (ed.), Unity and Diversity in Development Ideas: Perspectives from the UN Regional Commissions (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), pp. 253–256. 11. Adedeji, ‘The ECA: Forging a Future for Africa’, pp. 257–258. 12. Adedeji, ‘The ECA: Forging a Future for Africa’, pp. 258–259. 13. The above two paragraphs are summarised from Adedeji, ‘The ECA: Forging a Future for Africa’, pp. 259–262 and p. 269. 14. Adedeji, ‘The ECA: Forging a Future for Africa’, pp. 262–265. 15. Adedeji, ‘The ECA: Forging a Future for Africa’, p. 276. 16. Adedeji, ‘The ECA: Forging a Future for Africa’, pp. 256–257. 17. Asante, African Development: Adebayo Adedeji’s Alternative Strategies. 18. ‘African Alternative Framework to Structural Adjustment Programmes for Socio-Economic Recovery and Transformation’, UN General Assembly Resolution 44/49, 17 November 1989. 19. Adedeji, ‘The ECA: Forging a Future for Africa’, pp. 284–285. 20. Adedeji, ‘The ECA: Forging a Future for Africa’, p. 285. 21. Adedeji, ‘The ECA: Forging a Future for Africa’. 22. Adedeji, ‘The Economic Commission for Africa’, pp. 373–398. 23. Asante, African Development: Adebayo Adedeji’s Alternative Strategies. 24. Robert S. Browne and Robert J. Cummings, The Lagos Plan of Action vs. the Berg Report: Contemporary Issues in African Economic Development, Monographs in African Studies (Washington D.C.: Howard University, 1984), p. 23. 25. Browne and Cummings, The Lagos Plan of Action vs. the Berg Report, pp. 213–215. 26. Adedeji, ‘The ECA: Forging a Future for Africa’, p. 287. 27. Gilbert M.  Khadiagala, ‘Two Moments in African Thought: Ideas in Africa’s International Relations’, South African Journal of International Affairs, 17, 3, December 2010, pp. 375–386. 28. Adedeji, ‘ECOWAS’, p 36 and pp. 46–47. 29. Adedeji, ‘The ECA: Forging a Future for Africa’, p. 252. 30. Audit of the African Union: Towards a People-Centred Political and Socio-­ economic Integration and Transformation of Africa (Addis Ababa: African Union, 2007). 31. Audit of the African Union. 32. See Adebayo Adedeji, ‘NEPAD’s African Peer Review Mechanism: Progress and Prospects’, in John Akokpari, Angela Ndinga-Muvumba and Tim Murithi

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(eds.), The African Union and Its Institutions (Johannesburg: Jacana, 2008), pp. 241–269. 33. See African Peer Review Mechanism, ‘Country Review Report: Republic of South Africa’, African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) Country Review Report, 2007. 34. Patrick Bond, ‘First Class Failure’, BBC Focus on Africa, 21, 4, October– December 2010, p. 26. 35. Adebayo Adedeji (ed.), South Africa in Africa: Within or Apart? (London: Zed Books, 1996). 36. Adedeji, ‘South Africa and Africa’s Political Economy’, pp. 40–62. 37. Adedeji, ‘ECOWAS’, p. 46. 38. Adebayo Adedeji, ‘Foreword’, in Adekeye Adebajo and Raufu Mustapha (eds.), Gulliver’s Troubles: Nigeria’s Foreign Policy after the Cold War (Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2008), pp. xvii–xix. 39. Quoted in Sanmi-Ajiki, Adebayo Adedeji, pp. v–vii. 40. See Simon, Fifty Key Thinkers on Development.

CHAPTER 15

Tracing Moyo’s Intellectual Footprint on Land and Agrarian Questions in the Global South Zvenyika Eckson Mugari

Introduction The intellectual stature of an academic is best measured not just by the volume of their intellectual labor and accomplishments but by the timelessness of their intervention as well as through the work of those they inspire. Professor Sam Moyo’s magnum opus on land and agrarian studies in all probability stands up to this exacting standard of academic excellence, as the evidence presented in this discussion seeks to demonstrate. “At the time of his death on 22 November 2015, he had published over 100 publications on the subject, over a career spanning more than 35 years of research and teaching on rural development with a focus on land reform, agrarian change, environmental policy, and social movements” (Manzungu et al. n.d.). It must be pointed out at the outset that Professor Moyo was very consistent in bringing a critical political economy analytic inflection to his academic work. It is also important to make it clear at the outset that this chapter eschews the view that celebrates Professor Moyo’s colossal academic achievement as the work of a lonely genius. Without plunging myself into the irresolvable nature/nurture debate, it suffices to make mention of those personal attributes and characteristic traits on which he drew and the social milieu that provided a fertile ground that nurtured the development of his ideas. Moyo made his academic debut while in exile at Njala University in Sierra Leone studying for a B.A. in Geography Education, as well as teaching at some Z. E. Mugari (*) Media and Society Studies Department, Midlands State University, Gweru, Zimbabwe Wits Centre for Diversity Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 S. O. Oloruntoba, T. Falola (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of African Political Economy, Palgrave Handbooks in IPE, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38922-2_15

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West African universities (Tsikata 2017). It was here where he must have made contacts with individuals who were going to occupy key positions in the independence government of Zimbabwe. The likes of Ignatius Chombo, Dr. Nathan Shamuyarira, Ibbo Mandaza, and renowned Zimbabwean Historians Stanislaus Mudenge and Ngwabi Bhebe, to name just a few. It was also while in exile that Moyo had his first encounters with eminent Marxist Pan-African scholars such as Samir Amin and Mahmood Mamdani, individuals who must have played a very significant part in his mind formation. Moyo’s academic path also intersected with these and many other giants in the Pan-African intellectual firmament, such as Thandika Mkandawire, Issa Shivji, and Claude Ake, among others. Figure 15.1 is an attempt to map the imprimatur of the intellectual footprint Professor Sam Moyo left on our shared universe. What is sketched out here is only indicative and it should not by any means be taken as an exhaustive list of intellectual partners Moyo worked with, organizations he helped start and worked for, or intellectual work he contributed. Rather, this chapter serves to map out a universe that discursively produced him, and which in turn also presented him with a canvas on which to inscribe his own signature. However, one could rightfully wonder how someone whose area of research interest happens to be media studies find anything of scholarly interest in Sam Moyo’s research, focusing as it does on land and agrarian questions. I was

Fig. 15.1  An indication of the complex web of places, organizations, and people who made up Moyo’s intellectual community as well as his intellectual output

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drawn into Moyo’s intellectual universe by the small accident, or rather should I say, it was debates about colonial legacies of racial land segregation that intersected with my concern about media representation of the conflicting sides on the land issue that then drew my attention to Sam Moyo’s work. Moyo’s critical but balanced appraisal of Zimbabwe’s fast track land reform program (FTLRP) sounded like a voice in the wilderness, when compared with what was being reported in the polarized media (Willems 2004). It was nothing short of revolutionary for him to have taken the positions that he took on the land reform issue at a time when it would have been most convenient to echo and reproduce the dominant narratives for or against the land reform as it unfolded. At a personal level, I cannot count myself among Sam Moyo’s close acquaintances, having met him only once when I attended the 12th General Assembly of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) in 2008 in Yaoundé, Cameroon, which he also attended and at which he assumed the presidency of the organization. While the social distance between us might potentially handicap my ability to give a more rounded commentary on Moyo’s life and his academic achievements, it also gives me the rare privilege to make my judgment of his work unencumbered by any filial duties emanating from personal attachments that often develop between people who inhabited the same universe. I bring a sort of outsider perspective on the significance of Sam Moyo’ work to understanding the variegated nature of land questions in the Global South. The land question has become more topical than ever before in the Southern African region. Zimbabwe provided the test case when, beginning in 2000, a majority of landless Africans started a land revolution from below which forced the government to ram through legislation to enable compulsory land acquisition without compensation. On 14 November 2018, the South African Parliament passed a land bill to amend section 25 of that country’s constitution to enable the government to expropriate land without compensation for resettlement purposes (Moosa 2018; Żukowski 2017). The Namibian government too is seized with working out modalities to enable it to expeditiously redress historical land ownership imbalances. This chapter is a reflection on the relevance of Sam Moyo’s critical insights on the political economy of land and labor in the Global South. Although much of his academic work is grounded on the Zimbabwean postcolonial experience with land reform, it only does so in order to bring out the microcosmic nature of the case from which valuable lessons can be drawn for wider application in resolving similar land and agrarian questions in postcolonial contexts elsewhere. Professor Moyo literally developed his academic career around the land and agrarian questions in postcolonial Africa, grounding it in very extensive field research conducted in Zimbabwe over a period of more than three decades (from mid-1980s to 2015). In memory of Professor Sam Moyo’s untimely death, CODESRIA, the leading African research institute he had closely associated with throughout his entire academic life, compiled a special bulletin of tributes by those who had known and worked with him. In one such statement,

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Professor Dzodzi Tsikata, then President of CODESRIA, acknowledged the outstanding academic and intellectual contribution Moyo had made to the wider land and agrarian studies community: Sam showed great courage in his robust engagement with Zimbabwe’s land reforms. He charted a course of independent research which eschewed sensationalism and illuminated the scale and significance of land redistribution represented by the Fast Track Land Reform Programme which saw over two hundred thousand Zimbabwean households acquiring land for their livelihoods. In spite of the fact that this was for a long time a very lonely undertaking, which incurred the disapproval of the different sides of the debates on Zimbabwe’s land reforms, he was much respected and admired not only within CODESRIA, but in the wider community of progressive intellectuals within the global south for his consistency and the quality of the evidence he produced to back his positions. (Tsikata and Sall 2015: 5)

The evolution of the agrarian questions in sub-Saharan Africa has its roots in colonial histories of land dispossession and forced displacement of indigenous African people to make way for European occupation and settlement. There exists a corpus of literature that documents the historical dynamics of colonial land and agrarian policies throughout the history of colonial rule in the sub-­ region. Historians generally single out land grievances as the major cause of racial conflicts that later on escalated into civil armed war of resistance; these eventually rolled back colonialism and ushered independence and democratic rule in the region by the end of the twentieth century. It was a legitimate popular expectation that with the attainment of independence would come the restoration of people’s stolen land. The disillusionment that came as a result of independence governments’ failure to deliver this important independence promise, and how it became a rallying point for popular mobilization of Africans, is the subject of much of the research work spearheaded by Moyo. This point is most eloquently articulated in his seminal publication The Land Question in Zimbabwe (1994), while he worked at the African Institute for Agrarian Studies (AIAS)—now named Sam Moyo African Institute for Agrarian Studies (SMAIAS) in his honor—the organization he helped found in 2002. This chapter takes Professor Moyo’s work on the land question as its inspiration to establish how his work remains of continuing relevance in illuminating contemporary debates on land and agrarian policy in Southern Africa. In doing so this chapter seeks to achieve three broad objectives. It attempts a critical appraisal of how the peculiarities of Zimbabwe as a research site influenced Moyo’s engagement with the evolving complexities of the land question. Closely linked to this is how Moyo’s research was implicated in the political economy of knowledge production and dissemination on Africa by African scholars. Third, the chapter also deals with the more substantive theoretical debates the Zimbabwean model of land reform raises, with a view to drawing lessons for their broader applicability within the Southern African

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region and beyond. Finally, I seek to flag Moyo’s theoretical contribution to the critical political economy of land reform in Africa.

Moyo’s Intersecting Universes Moyo inherited and continued with a tradition of critical analysis which had a well-established lineage of critical political economy scholarship, with a focus on colonial land policies and how they impacted colonial trajectories of peasant to proletariat transitions among subject populations. The mass land dispossession of the indigenous people of Southern Africa and their being herded into what were, in principle, labor concentration camps named “native reserves” and the migrant labor phenomenon they engendered have been the subject of intellectual debate from the early days of settler colonial occupation in Southern Africa. The violent processes by which vast tracts of land in regions of high agricultural potential in South Africa and Zimbabwe, for example, ended up in the hands of a minority white agricultural capitalist class were also a matter of interest for historiographical analysis. Early scholarship which addressed itself to the subject of the land question had firmly underlined the problematic colonial policy of unequal distribution and access to land along racial lines as unsustainable in the long run (Desmond 1971). Critics had long warned that the system of land segregation instituted by British colonial administrators of Natal and the Cape colony in the early 1800s, and which was in time universalized across most of British-ruled Southern Africa, carried the seeds of its own demise. The way the land question is closely tied to the broader socio-political economy issues affecting most countries of the region was a moot point that Moyo’s work consistently drew the reader’s attention to. To have an insightful engagement with the legacy of Moyo’s work, one needs to understand the author’s situatedness and positionality in the postcolonial land revolution that was going on in Zimbabwe at the time (Moyo 2010). Moyo’s work throws an invaluable search light into the intractable question of the racially segregated land distribution and access, or lack thereof, in much of postcolonial Africa. Using Zimbabwe as his case study, he broaches the subject on how without sincerely addressing the issue of equitable land redistribution, the decolonization project of the last century becomes a monumental failure. The urgency and currency of land reform in the whole continent of Africa as a subject continues to call for and demand critical engagement by scholars of every disciplinary hue. This is evident from how global actors and institutions, particularly in the Global North such as Western news organizations like Fox News, Democracy and policy research foundations like the CATO Institute, and individuals like the American President Donald Trump, continue to use Zimbabwean-style land revolution started at the turn of the century as an extreme example of how not to do land reform. Opinion is divided on the nature of consequences of that compulsory acquisition of land from former white commercial farmers and redistribution to

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landless black people of Zimbabwe. One school of thought, of which Richardson (2004) and Pilossof (2008) are leading luminaries, blames the economic crisis that affected Zimbabwe at the same time the country was implementing what they describe as a chaotic and violent fast-track land reform on the land reform process itself. They argue that compulsory seizure of privately owned land struck at the heart of liberal market economic orthodoxy’s credo of protection of property rights. With property rights compromised, capital flight and corporate divestiture in the economy follow as a natural outcome. From this standpoint, Zimbabwe’s land reform badly hurt the country’s economy and most importantly undermined the country’s capacity to feed itself. Another school of thought argues that on the contrary, Zimbabwe’s land reform program expanded access to land, a vital economic resource, without which the majority black peasants were doomed to poverty and exclusion from participating in the mainstream economy. Even where there is agreement on the economic consequences of the land reform program in Zimbabwe, little attention if any is given to how extraneous factors like the unilateral imposition of economic restrictions on Zimbabwe by Western nations intersected with local economic and political exigencies to affect growth opportunities for Zimbabwe. Another school of thought takes a more sympathetic view of the land reform program, citing examples of success stories on the development of small-holder farmers who benefitted and are now meaningfully contributing to rising levels of agricultural output in both food crops and cash crops like tobacco and horticultural produce for export (Scoones 2016; Hammar et al. 2003).

Moyo’s Work Professor Dzodzi Tsikata, Moyo’s colleague and immediate successor to the presidency of CODESRIA, in her tribute statement in memory of Moyo commented on how society had lost the opportunity to give his academic work the recognition that it deserved. She pointed out that it was regrettable that “the wider land and agrarian studies community sadly failed to give him full credit for his pivotal role in changing the debate about Zimbabwe’s land reforms” (Tsikata and Sall 2015: 5). Moyo was favored by history and circumstance to have lived through and borne witness to a grassroots-led land revolution without precedent in postcolonial Africa. Moyo blazed a research trail on the multidimensional problem of land from as early as when he returned to Zimbabwe soon after independence, when he joined the University of Zimbabwe and joined the Zimbabwe Institute of Development Studies from when it was established in 1982. Moyo started to construct a research archive on land and agrarian policy through the first two decades of Zimbabwe’s independence when government sought to redress “settler-colonial legacy of land dispossession and accumulation” (Sam Moyo 2011a: 259), through implementation of a market-based willing buyer willing seller land reform strategy that just did not seem to work. Moyo’s work stands out as uniquely different in the breadth and depth of its coverage of the subject of land reform. Though he draws

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much of his empirical evidence from Zimbabwe as the site of his research studies, Moyo is acutely conscious of its global relevance and applicability and he brings this out in most of his writing on the subject. While his work is empirically grounded in the Zimbabwean scene, it transcends the temporality and geopolitical fixities in its theoretical resonance with experiences elsewhere. Moyo divides the historical trajectory of post-independence land reform in Zimbabwe into three phases that coincided with the three decades after attainment of majority rule in 1980 (Sam Moyo 2013). The first two phases of the 1980s and the 1990s decades were largely similar in state support for a market-­ led land redistribution program under the willing buyer willing seller doctrine. The only difference was in the intensity of the state’s intervention in what was viewed as a market issue premised on the respect of the private property rights of the owners of land. The state’s adoption of a neoliberal economic structural adjustment policy, on the insistence of the World Bank and the IMF in Zimbabwe’s second decade of independence, led to a slowdown in land redistribution as the state rolled back from intervening in the market. Trade liberalization and deregulation demanded this. Thus, Moyo describes the second phase as a period when land redistribution had gone into hibernation (Sam Moyo 2011b). The third phase beginning in 2000 was, however, markedly different from the earlier phases of land reform in both its intensity and disruptive nature. The third phase was also different in the state’s role in it; the state faced a dilemma here: to continue on the neoliberal path of respecting and protecting private property as sacrosanct or to take the populist position of following the crowd with the hope eventually of capturing it and managing it for its own ends. The state actually followed rather than led a truly bottom-up mass movement demanding redress of colonial injustice in land access. It was in this regard that the fast track land reform program (FTLRP) was revolutionary. That the state followed the people’s lead was evident in the state belatedly and retroactively fast-tracking land expropriation legislation to give legitimacy post-facto to what were in effect illegal land occupations by landless people. In the past, the neocolonial state would have moved in with eviction orders and bulldozers against the illegal settlers in the interests of maintaining the rule of law. What was different this time around, now that the state had chosen to aid and abate what was in essence an assault on property rights instead of acting in its defense? Was the state a genuine partner of the people’s land movement? What was in the state actors’ interest in all this? Inquiry into these questions polarized the land and agrarian scholarly opinion on the FTLRP in Zimbabwe (Pilossof 2008). One school of thought simply dismissed the land revolution as a “violent and chaotic land grab,” presided on by an African political elite driven by the imperative for political self-preservation. Another school interpreted the phenomenon through the prism of state clientelism and patrimonialism characteristic of postcolonial state systems in Africa, to account for state actors’ role in the land reform program—it was a vote-buying gimmick used to shore up Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party’s waning

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political fortunes. A more nuanced analysis of the FTLRP (and Moyo’s own work is less acknowledged as fitting this billing) placed it within a broader nexus of opposing class interests, both local and international. On the one hand was a powerful white landed capitalist class not yet prepared to cede white privilege; on the other hand, extreme end of the class spectrum was the dispossessed landless black majority, disillusioned by the government’s tardiness in fulfilling long-standing promises of decolonizing land ownership. In the third place was an aspiring black bourgeoisie clamoring for accommodation and a place in the sun. State securocrats and former liberation fighters formed a significant part of this grouping. Two years before, they had tested their bargaining strength against the state when they demanded and succeeded in extorting a once-off demobilization gratuity of $50,000 each for veterans of the liberation war. Caught in the middle of these warring social formations was the neocolonial state, whose own hold on power was becoming increasingly tenuous in the face of an emerging formidable political opposition. Under these circumstances, the state’s survival instinct led it to throw its full weight behind the peasant demands for a radical land reform. Moyo’s earlier work had anticipated the emergence of a popular and dramatic mass mobilization around outstanding land grievances, and this had come to pass in 2000 given that the early farm occupations had started off as spontaneous actions by rural peasants, uncoordinated by the state. What Moyo, working with his research partner Yeros, might not have anticipated was how the people’s land revolution would pan out after the state hijacked and repurposed it for its own ends. This probably accounts for what some critics point to as Moyo’s seemingly blind and premature celebration of the FTLRP as a resounding success. What critics find unconscionable and probably rightly too, was that Moyo and his research partners in AIAS had to bring a critical political economy theoretical lens to their analysis and were supposed to have known better; there was some grain of truth in the old classical Marxist aphorism that the state, as the executive committee of the bourgeoisie as a whole, would eventually act in the long-term interests of the capitalist class and against the lower class’ real interests. This is a point on which they are very clear in their analysis: The purpose of the nationalist leadership was to control and co-opt the land movement, as well as to open a political space for the expression of pent up land demands among layers of the population, some of which were not directly organized by war veterans. Most crucially, it did so to accommodate the interests of the aspiring black bourgeoisie. (Sam Moyo and Yeros 2013)

However their endorsement of the FTLRP under the direction of the ZANU-PF government as having somehow resolved the land question in the interest of peasant classes (Tsikata 2017) was a total negation, and it flew in the face of the critical political economy analysis they espoused. A fatal error they made was first of all to characterize the FTLRP as a people’s land occupation

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movement from below. In reality, the state takeover and programatization of the movement (Sam Moyo and Yeros 2005) became its undoing because of the competing and often irreconcilable and conflicting interests along lines of class. This scholarly misstep on their part has left critical scholarship on land in a quandary as to whether in post-FTLRP Zimbabwe there still remains any other land question to debate around. This is difficult to imagine under the capitalist logic of accumulation by dispossession and accumulation by surplus value extraction, which entails that the laboring classes must be maintained under pain of death, divorced from the means of their subsistence (Bonefeld 2014). It is difficult to suspect that Moyo and Yeros could have been laboring under the illusion that the emergent black bourgeoisie would be a more benign capitalist class simply because it had a more black nationalist character. Fanon (Fanon et al. 1963) had warned against these pitfalls of nationalist consciousness. Eric Worby’s cautious optimism is probably justified in characterizing the FTLRP as an ambiguous revolution and poses the question whether the FTLRP can be seen as: heralding the eclipse of large-scale capitalist farming in Zimbabwe, or only the partial displacement of a historically privileged white minority by their politically connected black bourgeois counterparts—people who are equally committed to maintaining the conditions of capitalist enterprise and accumulation? (Worby 2001)

Moyo’s Epistemic Rootedness in the Global South Thandika Mkandawire, a long-time colleague of Sam Moyo’s, speaks to the all-too-common economic strangulation of many an independent Southern intellectual project driven firmly from a Southern philosophical and theoretical reason: His position on the land question was principled and no threat of withdrawal of funding of his institute bent his intellectual integrity. He was bitter and disappointed by the de-campaigning of the institute by fellow scholars with close links to funders. I once sent him a link to an article in the New  York Times citing his work on land in Zimbabwe. This was no minor thing given what had been a systematic effort to blackout the work of his institute and the financial strangulation it was being subjected to. But he took it all in stride. However I do know for sure that he took pride from the knowledge that he and his team had beaten the media blackout. He also knew he had won the intellectual battle. (Mkandawire 2015: 6)

The value of Moyo’s intellectual effort in illuminating the nature of African people’s struggle for the redress of land injustices in Zimbabwe did not enjoy immediate acceptance as a scientifically credible account of events and social phenomena unfolding on the African continent in the so-called global a­ cademy. His intellectual work, like that of many thinkers from the Global South before him, had to be subjected to the same stringent gatekeeping processes that con-

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tinue to be afflicted by a Conradian denial of the African’s claim to humanity, still laboring under fear of the possibility of their not being inhuman (Conrad 1996). Steyn (2012) has deployed the concepts of white ignorance and the ignorance pact that underpins a racist ideology to describe how ignorance actively inserts the unknowing Other in the epistemic hierarchy dominated by normative Western knowledge/ignorance management systems. “Just like knowledge, ignorance can be socially constructed through communicative practices and disseminated across social settings, cultivated and nurtured inter-subjectively, circulating through social networks and activities” (Steyn 2012: 10). In the case of Professor Moyo, it was the Western academy’s reluctance to acknowledge the scientific value of knowledge produced by an African academic undirected and working through Southern research and academic institutions. Mahmood Mamdani, Professor Moyo’s long-time academic compatriot at CODESRIA, in a moving tribute on Moyo’s passing commented on how the so-called established Western-based intellectual community somehow missed Southern perspectives on occurrences in the South by a system of referencing that fronts Western canonical intellectual opinion ahead of that of scholars in the Global South: As I read these sources, and the press reports on their findings, I learnt something about the politics of knowledge production and its recognition in the public sphere. Two facts were crystal clear to me: one, that Sam had been several steps ahead of the others; and, two, that his work was the last to be recognized. It was almost as if the press went by a rule of thumb: when it came to ideas, the chain had to originate in a Western University, and the link goes through a South African institution, before it came to an African researcher. (Mamdani 2015: 7)

Professor Moyo, however, never allowed these politics of recognition to dampen or bias his search for truth either way on the historical genesis and progression of a popular land revolution that was unfolding in Zimbabwe in his time. He was also very strategic in his selection of research platforms and networks through which he disseminated the productions of his intellectual labor. It was probably a result of a consciously chosen resistance positionality, and not for want of scientific rigor, that he favored Southern-based research institutions as vehicles of his intellectual output.

Zimbabwe Model of Land Reform: Lessons for the Region From the beginning of his intellectual/research career on land and agrarian issues, Moyo built on and extended a well-established genealogy of critical political economy scholarly tradition along the grain of Giovanni Arrighi, Van Onselen, Palmer, and Phimister. The scholarly tradition established by these luminaries on the colonial land question in Zimbabwe had looked at the prob-

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lem of land as interconnected with other political questions confronting the nascent colonial state. For Moyo, the study of unequal access to land could not be fully disentangled from the questions of racial conflict and relations of capitalist production and labor supply (Raftopoulos 2016; Worby 2001). Intellectual opinion on the FTLRP has oscillated from delegitimation, through skeptical acceptance, to its enthusiastic embrace as a significant and socially transformative historical moment in Zimbabwe. Often absent was an empirically grounded and politically nuanced analysis and evaluation of the program, and Moyo’s work stands above the fray in its attempt to fill this gap. The class interests the state pursued in its involvement with the FTLRP were diametrically different from and opposed to the interests of the landless peasants on whose behalf it purported to act. The purpose of the nationalist leadership was to control and co-opt the land movement, as well as to open a political space for the expression of pent up land demands among layers of the population, some of which were not directly organized by war veterans. Most crucially, it did so to accommodate the interests of the aspiring black bourgeoisie. (Sam Moyo and Yeros 2013)

By appearing to be fighting in the black peasant class’ corner, the state was much better able to usurp and take control and redirect the trajectory of the grassroots land movement away from radical notions of land restoration and restitution claims of the majority black rural poor. The whole movement was quickly turned into a political party program run and coordinated by the ZANU-PF party leadership structures, ostensibly for every interested Zimbabwean citizen but in practice for the benefit first and foremost of party loyalists (Cliffe et al. 2011). In this way, the program largely missed its primary objective of rural decongestion (Utete 2003). As developments a few years later indicate, Zimbabwe’s model of radicalized land reform did not fundamentally alter the structural schism between the reserve army of black labor from the source of their subsistence—land. Doing so would have meant the ruling party was recommitting to socializing the means of production and breaching neoliberal capitalism’s foundational principle of keeping the laboring class permanently severed from access to the means of their subsistence (Bonefeld 2014). The nationalist leadership did not share the landless poor’s illusions about using FTLRP as an instrument to achieve an egalitarian social order in Zimbabwe. But as Moyo and Yeros also acknowledge, the state’s involvement was limited to “representing mainly un-accommodated black bourgeois interests … so as to sustain a ‘patriotic bourgeoisie’ into the future” (Sam Moyo and Yeros 2013). It is against this background that for Moyo and his colleague to arrive at the conclusion that: “Zimbabwe had unraveled the settler-dominated ‘labor reserve’ economy of the past” (ibid.) in the same paper sounds a bit misplaced and contradictory to their critical political economy analysis that characterize the greater part of their critique of the Zimbabwe fast track land reform program in this and other papers they published on the subject. It is

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even more surprising in light of the Utete Land Audit Committee finding that the program had not succeeded in its objective of decongesting the rural areas, as it is not possible that Moyo was unaware of this finding given that he chaired the technical subcommittee of the Utete Land Committee. Colonialism or no colonialism, the nationalist leadership’s abandonment of socialism and embrace of neoliberalism as its political ideology in the 1990s meant in principle committing to uphold and keep intact the implied class structure which guaranteed a cheap labor supply for capitalist exploitation, in order to obtain which, as Amin and Girvan point out: the colonizers had dispossessed the African rural communities by violence and driven them back deliberately into small regions, … kept them in these poor regions with no means of modernizing and intensifying their farming. Thus they forced the “traditional” society to be a supplier of temporary or permanent migrants on a vast scale, thus providing a cheap proletariat for the mines, the European farms, and later for the manufacturing industries of South Africa, Rhodesia and Kenya. “the labor reserve society had a function … that of supplying a migrant proletariat.” (Amin and Girvan 1973)

In light of the foregoing, Moyo’s evaluation of the FTLRP as an example of a radicalized grassroots movement that was largely successful in resolving the land problem in Zimbabwe is a little misplaced. He does not pay adequate analytic attention to the question of the neocolonial state having a vested interest in preserving the labor reserve structure in its traditional function, a function which would obviously be undermined were the reserves to be liquidated by doling out land back to their residents. The success, which would be reasonable to attribute to the fast track land reform program, was probably in deracializing unequal access to land. Unequal land ownership in Zimbabwe after FTLRP is no longer defined by the color of one’s skin as before, but largely by one’s standing in the political hierarchy. Moyo’s analysis also understates or downplays the negative impact on Zimbabwe’s economy of the backlash the program attracted from international capital. The economic sanctions imposed by Western nations on Zimbabwe stifled any chances of the economy reaping any dividends that would have accrued as a direct result of the land reform program. If anything, capital’s way of striking back has effectively rendered Zimbabwe’s model of land reform program a shining example of a road not to be taken by any of its regional neighbors’ intent on implementing land reforms of their own.

Looking to the Future At the heart of a critical political economy analysis is the contention that the capitalist system is anchored on what it calls primitive accumulation. In classical Marxist terms the capitalist mode of production had its origins in enforced separation of the peasantry from means of production of their subsistence

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mainly through land dispossession. In Western Europe, mainly Britain, the transition from a feudal to a capitalist system was preceded by mass displacement of the peasantry from the land through the enclosure system (Thompson 2016). In the colonies, that process was characterized with violent and brutal uprooting and displacement of whole communities of indigenous peoples in a process of primitive capitalist accumulation, to effect a separation of the colonized subject population from the means of their subsistence and push them through economic necessity into the capitalist productive sectors as wage laborers. So long as that forced separation could be maintained by what Bonefeld refers to as the force of lawmaking violence, the black rural peasant economy could be kept in permanent decline mode (Bonefeld 2014). The connection between unresolved land hunger, rural poverty, and rising labor precarity was at the core of Moyo’s intellectual project. It was clear to him that the answer to the land question in former colonies did not lie with state-driven market solutions. The neoliberal state in Zimbabwe had “relegated the majority population to a permanent process of semi-proletarianization and super-exploitation” (Sam Moyo and Yeros 2013). Only a radical peasant-led social mobilization and action would be capable to bring about meaningful social transformation to existing colonial land ownership structures, and a lasting solution to the land question and herald the dawn of a more democratic and egalitarian social order. According to Moyo, the Zimbabwean FTLRP, started in 2000, came closest to resembling such a grassroots social movement with all the necessary ingredients to decouple land and capital and set the country on a path to a future economic prosperity in which the majority could participate. The fact that the aftermath of that revolutionary land reform process has unfolded in ways Moyo may have not anticipated in his projections poses a challenge to his successor scholars to bear his torch and light our paths into the future with honor. Moyo’s unflinching “commitment to an emancipatory project in knowledge production” shall forever remain part of a rich intellectual legacy that will continue “to inspire generations of scholars” (Tsikata 2017).

References Amin, Samir, and Cherita Girvan. 1973. Underdevelopment and Dependence in Black Africa–Their Historical Origins and Contemporary Forms. Social and Economic Studies 22 (1): 177–196. Bonefeld, Werner. 2014. Critical Theory and the Critique of Political Economy: On Subversion and Negative Reason. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing USA. Cliffe, Lionel, Jocelyn Alexander, Ben Cousins, and Rudo Gaidzanwa. 2011. An Overview of Fast Track Land Reform in Zimbabwe: Editorial Introduction. Journal of Peasant Studies 38 (5): 907–938. CODESRIA. 2015. Editorial: Professor Sam Moyo: A Great Intellectual, and A Great Leader. CODESRIA Bulletin Numbers 3 & 4. p 1. Dakar, Senegal: Coucnil for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa.

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Conrad, Joseph. 1996. Heart of Darkness. In Heart of Darkness, 17–95. New York: Springer. Desmond, Cosmas. 1971. The Discarded People: An Account of African Resettlement in South Africa. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Fanon, Frantz, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Constance Farrington. 1963. The Wretched of the Earth. Vol. 36. New York: Grove Press. Hammar, Amanda Julie, Brian Raftopoulos, and Stig Eduard Breitenstein Jensen. 2003. Zimbabwe’s Unfinished Business: Rethinking Land, State and Nation in the Context of Crisis. Harare, Zimbabwe: Weaver Press. Mamdani, M. 2015. Tributes to Professor Sam Moyo: Selfless, Committed and Totally Reliable. CODESRIA Bulletin, Numbers 3 & 4, p. 7. Dakar, Senegal: Council for the Development of Social Science research in Africa. Manzungu, Emmanuel, Sam Moyo, Brent Boehlert, and Raffaello Cervigni. n.d. Potential Impacts of Climate Change and Adaptations Options in Zimbabwe’s Agriculture Sector. Mkandawire, T. 2015. Tributes to Professor Sam Moyo: Researcher and Institutional Builder. CODESRIA Bulletin Numbers 3 & 4, p. 6. Dakar, Senegal: Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa. Moosa, Mikhail. 2018. South Africans’ Views on Land Reform: Evidence from the South African Reconciliation Barometer. Cape Town, South Africa: Institute for Justice and Reconciliation. Moyo, Sam. 2010. Land in the Political Economy of African Development: Alternative Strategies for Reform. Africa Development 32 (4). https://doi.org/10.4314/ad. v32i4.57319. ———. 2011a. Land Concentration and Accumulation After Redistributive Reform in Post-Settler Zimbabwe. Review of African Political Economy 38 (128): 257–276. ———. 2011b. Three Decades of Agrarian Reform in Zimbabwe. Journal of Peasant Studies 38 (3): 493–531. ———. 2013. Land Reform and Redistribution in Zimbabwe Since 1980. In Land and Agrarian Reform in Zimbabwe: Beyond White Settler Capitalism, 29–78. CODESRIA & AIAS: Dakar, Senegal. Moyo, Sam, and Great Leader. n.d. New Executive Committee Members Tributes to Professor Sam Moyo Sam Moyo: Speeches from the Archives CODESRIA 14th General Assembly. Moyo, Sam, and Paris Yeros. 2005. Reclaiming the Land: The Resurgence of Rural Movements in Africa, Asia and Latin America. London: Zed Books. ———. 2013. The Zimbabwe Model: Radicalisation, Reform and Resistance. In Land and Agrarian Reform in Zimbabwe: Beyond White Settler Capitalism, 331–358. CODESRIA & AIAS: Dakar, Senegal. Pilossof, Rory. 2008. The Land Question (Un) Resolved: An Essay Review. Historia 53 (2): 270–279. Raftopoulos, Brian. 2016. Zimbabwe Institute of Development Studies (ZIDS): The Early Context of Sam Moyo’s Intellectual Development. Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy 5 (2–3): 187–201. Richardson, Craig. 2004. The Collapse of Zimbabwe in the Wake of the 2000–2003 Land Reforms. New York: Edwin Mellen Press. Scoones, Ian. 2016. Livelihoods, Land and Political Economy: Reflections on Sam Moyo’s Research Methodology. Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy 5 (2–3): 221–239. https://doi.org/10.1177/2277976016683750.

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Steyn, Melissa. 2012. The Ignorance Contract: Recollections of Apartheid Childhoods and the Construction of Epistemologies of Ignorance. Identities 19 (1): 8–25. Thompson, Edward Palmer. 2016. The Making of the English Working Class. New York: Open Road Media. Tsikata, Dzodzi. 2017. Sam Moyo: A Life of Prodigious Scholarship, Institution Building and Strategic Activism. Development and Change 48 (5): 1154–1167. Tsikata, D. and Sall, E. 2015. Tributes to Professor Sam Moyo: Professor Sam Moyo, A Great Intellectual and A Man of Integrity. CODESRIA Bulletin, Numbers 3 & 4, p. 5. Dakar, Senegal: Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa. Utete, Charles. 2003. Zimbabwe 2003 Report of the Presidential Land Review Committee on the Implementation of the Fast Track Land Reform Programme, 2000–2002. GOZ. https://sarpn.org/documents/d0000622/P600-Utete_ PLRC_00-02.pdf Willems, Wendy. 2004. Peasant Demonstrators, Violent Invaders: Representations of Land in the Zimbabwean Press. World Development 32 (10): 1767–1783. Worby, Eric. 2001. A Redivided Land? New Agrarian Conflicts and Questions in Zimbabwe. Journal of Agrarian Change 1 (4): 475–509. Żukowski, Arkadiusz. 2017. Land Reform in the Republic of South Africa: Social Justice or Populism? Werkwinkel 12 (1): 71–84.

CHAPTER 16

Thabo Mbeki: The Formation of a Philosopher of Liberation William Mpofu

Introduction There is expansive literature on the political ideas and practices of the second president of democratic South Africa, Thabo Mbeki. The literature is however accompanied by a poverty of understandings of how Mbeki was formed into the philosopher of liberation that he became. The misunderstandings of Thabo Mbeki’s political and philosophical formation have in turn led to misjudgements of his words and deeds. On the topic of economic policies, for instance, scholars such as Patrick Bond (2002) understood Mbeki to be too eager to integrate South Africa and Africa into the world economy through the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), to the extent of not breaking but shining the chains of global economic and political apartheid of the international neoliberal regime. The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) is understood by Bond to have been driven by the same compradorism that Mbeki himself frequently condemned; he became a local manager of the international neoliberal political and economic regime that punished the poor in Africa. In the judgement of Patrick Bond and other scholars, Mbeki spoke left but acted right, particularly in the way he decried Africa’s poverty but went on to energetically seek to appease global neoliberal economic and political powers. This and many other judgements of Thabo Mbeki’s ideas minimise the climate of economic and political compromise under which the South African transition from apartheid to democracy took place. This chapter seeks to contribute to efforts in addressing the poverty and glaring gap in the

W. Mpofu (*) Critical Diversity Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa © The Author(s) 2020 S. O. Oloruntoba, T. Falola (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of African Political Economy, Palgrave Handbooks in IPE, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38922-2_16

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studies of Thabo Mbeki’s political thought and practice. With the relevance and weight of political ideas, Thabo Mbeki has intrigued political activists and also arrested the attention of scholars in Africa and beyond. Mbeki’s political thinking on the world and Africa in particular has been as fascinating as it has been controversial. In their different ways, both the political activists and scholars have invested efforts in  locating the true Mbeki that may be concealed behind a multiplicity of fictions, myths and some illusions about the man and his political ideas. Sifiso Mxolisi Ndlovu and Miranda Strydom (2016) assembled a number of African former heads of states, politicians and policymakers to ponder the subject of “the Thabo Mbeki I know.” In that assemblage of political reflections on Mbeki as he is understood and known by colleagues and compatriots, more controversy than clarity arose as different people portrayed a different person, and a rather complex and misunderstood intellectual and political figure. The factual reflections on his ideas and work by those who have worked closely with him constitute a fiction and myth of a kind as Mbeki emerges as a larger-than-life figure—intelligent, brave and industrious to a fault. From the scholarly world, Darly Glaser (2010) assembled contributions from a number of scholars that were “reflections on the legacy of Thabo Mbeki.” The scholarly reflections, in their critical engagement with the mind and work of Thabo Mbeki, also portray an excessive intellectual and political figure that was a “nitemare” (Gevisser 2010), a kind of Machiavelli (Calland and Oxtoby 2010) that used cunning and scheming to seek and find power by any means necessary. In all the extreme affirmations and extreme negations of his ideas and political practices, there seems to be one emphatic area in which both the political supporters and intellectual critics of Mbeki meet. And that is his compelling capacity to think deeply and generate forceful ideas. Before the complaint that Mbeki “essentialised race in his engagement with fellow South Africans,” Eusebius Mckaiser (2010) admits that “Mbeki was, if nothing else, a very cerebral president who buried his deepest thoughts in the written and spoken word.” Colleagues, friends, critics and enemies all seem to converge on Mbeki as a reader, thinker and much articulate communicator. To Darly Glaser (2010: 9), Mbeki became a “post-ideological figure: a man who wanted, above all, to get things done, even if that meant deserting his movement’s socialist dogma and his predecessor” Nelson Mandela’s “feel-good rainbowism.” Mbeki is understood as a strong-minded intellectual and political operator who, to get things done, was prepared to confront and oppose the legacy of his party and example of his exalted mentors and superiors. Mbeki possessed, during the struggle against apartheid and after, what Joel Netshitenzhe (2016: 241) called “intelligence and sharpness of mind,” to the extent that his personal habits were imitated and multiplied by younger activists. Intellectually and in his social outlook, Mbeki made an impression on colleagues with his reading and pipe smoking habits. Mbeki’s was “the impression he had on us, the young ones … that many of us” in imitation of his style “started smoking pipes—as a representation, in our minds, of deep reflection and intellectual posture”

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(Netshitenzhe 2016: 241). Mbeki became an infectious intellectual and political figure who built a kind of cult and some disciples around himself. Thabo Mbeki’s famous speech, “I am an African” is described by Mahmood Mamdani (2016: xxxiii) as “one of the most remarkable political documents of the 20th Century” in its epistemic weight and aesthetic polish. Mbeki did not only articulate powerful ideas with some poetry and beauty, but he contributed to what became a “second moment” in African international relations in the way he advanced the idea of the “African renaissance and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development” (Khadiagala 2010: 375). After the first moment in African historical and political thinking, which was Pan-Africanism and Negritude, with the African Renaissance notion, Mbeki breathed new oxygen and pumped new intellectual and political excitement with the idea of Africa and being African in the world. The idea of the African Renaissance, in particular, became definitive of Thabo Mbeki’s presidency of South Africa and his African thought leadership. In his own pronunciation, the idea of the African Renaissance was about “Africans defining themselves” (Mbeki 2002: 72). Like his predecessors in the Negritude and Pan-Africanist movement, Mbeki made it his political and intellectual project to challenge colonial and imperial definitions of Africa. Thabo Mbeki’s representation of Africa and his defence of the image of Africans in the world achieved as much global currency as Edward Said’s advocacy for the question of Palestine. Critics of Thabo Mbeki very easily used his global intellectual and political currency on Africa and turned it around to accuse him of international posturing and attempting to be a world leader when he had not yet solved problems of the villages in South Africa. One of Mbeki’s most vigorous critics was Xolela Mangcu, a newspaper columnist and university professor. Thabo Mbeki’s international advocacy for Africa, Xolela Mangcu (2008: 139) noted, “was better articulated in foreign capitals than in the rural villages and urban communities of South Africa”; Mbeki “spent more time on the international stage than he did interacting with the communities.” Thabo Mbeki’s international, political and intellectual noise for Africa was found by Xolela Mangcu, and such other interlocutors as Barney Mthombothi, as “the impression that” Mbeki as “president finds SA and its problems too small, too constraining for his prodigious talents, he likes to play in a bigger pond.” I argue in this chapter, not in the sarcasm of Xolela Mangcu but in earnest, that as a philosopher of liberation, Mbeki did find South Africa and even Africa rather too small a site, as his intellectual and political project focused on the modern, colonial and imperial system that created most of Africa’s problems. Mbeki became more of a critic of the world system rather than a simple spokesperson for Africa. Philosophers of liberation in the Global South abandon the nativism of village politics and focus their political and intellectual resources on the world system and the world orders that it produces. Most critics and also supporters of Thabo Mbeki’s political thought and practice limited their view to a narrow project of an African politician that must delve into politics of the villages, nation and state, when Mbeki in actuality involved himself

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in post-continental and planetary politics of liberation. The dilemma of Thabo Mbeki is that he got involved in politics but did not invest in popularity; he did not say or do what popular politicians do to earn and keep popular support and a following. That political habit of wanting to get things done even if it means going against the popular grain made Thabo Mbeki a successful philosopher of liberation and a failed politician.

The Dilemma of a Philosopher of Liberation Thabo Mbeki did not involve himself with the political habit of clever politicians that build and maintain constituencies for popular base and support. One of the revelations that Mark Gevisser (2009) made on Thabo Mbeki is that he resisted building a constituency of his own, including the common habit of politicians to go back to their villages to drum up home support. Gevisser disclosed that Mbeki vowed that his own village of Mbewuleni was going to be the last village he would visit, as his work was not going to be about villages but the continent and the world. Thabo Mbeki, it seems, did not only avoid investing in works and statements that built personal popularity but also participated in making utterances and deeds that were controversial and unpopular even if they were true and right. Perhaps that is the first and foremost quality of the philosopher of liberation, to seek and find higher truths and to participate in political habits that may be unpopular but are understood and believed to be right. This is shown in such unpopular but strategic and pragmatic economic policies as NEPAD at a continental level, and Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) at a domestic level, that Mbeki championed. There was, in Africa and beyond, a popular expectation that South Africa under the leadership of Thabo Mbeki would prevail on Robert Mugabe and his regime in Zimbabwe to shape up to democratic expectations. Much unpopularly, Thabo Mbeki seemed to be soft on Mugabe and his regime to the extent of verbalising that in actuality there was “no crisis in Zimbabwe.” This was in spite of political violence and human rights violations in Zimbabwe under Mugabe’s venal tyrannical rule. Mbeki resisted pressure from the entire world to use South Africa’s historical and political stamina to discipline and punish Mugabe. The white commercial farmers that Mugabe had bereft of the land they controlled in Zimbabwe and the white world at a world scale, especially white South Africans, wanted Mugabe stopped. Mugabe had not only seized land and manufacturing factories but also killed some white people. Mbeki, as quoted in Ronald Suresh Roberts, explained his actions thus: A million people die in Rwanda and do the white South Africans care? Not a bit. You talk to them about the disaster in Angola, to which the apartheid regime contributed, and they are not interested. Let’s talk about Zimbabwe. Does anyone want to talk about the big disaster in Mozambique, from which it is now recovering? No. Let’s talk about Zimbabwe. You say to them, look at what is

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happening in the Congo. No, no, no, let’s talk about Zimbabwe. Why? because 12 white people died! (Roberts 2007: 167)

Instead of doing the popular thing of challenging Mugabe, Mbeki went for the much unpopular option of questioning the motives of the white world and pointing out racial biases. For that, there was a widespread campaign of hatred against Mbeki who seemed not to care about popularity. This stubborn insistence on unpopular truths was exhibited by Mbeki in the HIV/AIDS controversy in South Africa. Instead of disseminating treatment drugs with urgency, Mbeki questioned the science behind HIV/AIDS and the motives of global pharmaceuticals that were in to make big money from the South African government. That stubborn but otherwise right move cost Mbeki much needed popularity and political following but still, as in the case of Mugabe and Zimbabwe, he seemed not to care. On the Zimbabwean issue, Mbeki was not supporting or defending the tyranny of Robert Mugabe but was, like a dutiful philosopher of liberation in Africa, opposing racism and imperialism. On the HIV/AIDS issue, Mbeki was not negligently allowing a malady to finish off the people of South Africa but was, with due diligence, questioning the usability of science by global corporations to profit from the poor in Africa. Long after Mbeki was removed from power, the truths of his position on Zimbabwe and on the HIV/AIDS issue were vindicated. Mahmood Mamdani (2016: xxii) could, as a scholar and an African with a name and legacy to protect, argue that “Zimbabwe was arguably one of Thabo Mbeki’s successes; the other, in spite of the furore and the controversy it generated, in hindsight, as I shall argue later, was the HIV/AIDS campaign.” Mbeki was not popularly or politically successful on Zimbabwe and the HIV/AIDS issue; he was hated and condemned for his positions. His success was as a philosopher of liberation who stood for strong truths against racism, imperialism and global corporate greed. As a tyrant, Mugabe benefited from Mbeki’s strong position against regime change in Zimbabwe even if Mbeki’s higher goal was not simply to preserve a dictator. Mbeki’s success on Zimbabwe, Mamdani notes, was the prevention of regime change. Regarding the HIV/AIDS issue, at the end, Mbeki was able to source affordable drugs from India (Mamdani 2016) and successfully resisted expensive drugs from Western corporations. Thabo Mbeki’s political and historical dilemma became the dilemma of a philosopher of liberation that failed in the arena of popular politics. Like Amilcar Cabral, another African philosopher of liberation, Mbeki does not seem to have believed in telling lies and claiming easy victories. Telling unpopular truths and fighting the difficult struggle became Mbeki’s political failure and philosophical success. In his description of the philosophers of liberation in the world, Enrique Dussel (1985) portrayed brave individuals who understood how the world works. The philosophers of liberation that Dussel described were learned persons that kept their touch with the poor masses of their people. They understood Africa and Latin America from the ground but had a clear understanding of the world and the planet at large. When Mbeki pointed

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out the hypocrisy of white people on the Zimbabwean issue, he practised what Dussel understood as the courage of philosophers of liberation who do not conceal prejudice and domination when they witness them because they are angry about oppression and domination of one by the other. Mugabe was, no doubt, wrong in his tyrannical rule, but the white world was even more wrong to oppose Mugabe only for their own political and commercial interests in Zimbabwe, and ignored the suffering caused by colonialism and imperialism in Africa. The oxygen and blood of Thabo Mbeki’s philosophy of liberation was rooted in a specific and also important self-understanding. Even as he did not like marketing himself as a politician, talking about himself that is, Mbeki had an understanding of himself that made him a teller of unpopular truths and a philosopher of liberation. On one occasion Mbeki spoke thus about himself: I am going to do something that I do not normally do and which I do not like doing. I am going to speak about myself. As we grew up, we were taught always to tell the truth. We learnt that we should always search for the truth and not be happy with repeating dogma, however widespread the belief that such dogma represented the truth. We were taught never to fear to defend that we believed was right. It was said that we must respect people even as they hold views that are different from ours. (Mbeki 2002: 115)

A reading and understanding of Thabo Mbeki’s biography and upbringing under the mentorship of his father, Govan Mbeki, and Oliver Tambo show that he was produced by a strong political tradition of telling heavy truths and doing the hard even if unpopular work. In his self-understanding and self-­ representation, Mbeki could boldly announce that: “I belong among the uncelebrated unwashed masses, offering no rich pickings even for the most highly talented mind reader. Stated simply, all one needs to understand the political Thabo Mbeki is to know the value system and political programme he inherited from an established movement” (Gevisser 2009: 9). Mbeki grew up, as I describe later, amongst the poor and unwashed masses under apartheid and was groomed and educated, and travelled the world to be a thinker and communicator on African and world affairs. He became part of the intellectual and political elite who understood the poor and the oppressed from a privileged, educated and travelled standpoint. Mbeki became rather too well read and too widely travelled to be confined in the politics of South African villages. He came to possess a worldliness and planetarity that made him a philosopher of liberation who could speak about Africa from the world and think and speak about the world from Africa. The province of the philosophers of liberation is another province that is deeper and higher than the province of simple anti-colonialists and regular opponents of racism and imperialism. Paulo Freire characterised philosophers of liberation as critical humanists who had a job to free themselves and their people from oppression and also to free their oppressors from the burden of

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being oppressors. The dilemma of being the oppressed who not only wants to free himself and his people but also cares to want to liberate the oppressor is a real dilemma for philosophers of liberation and the critical humanists that Freire so described. Liberation is described by Freire as a painful childbirth that produces the liberated as a liberating new person, “liberation is thus a childbirth, and a painful one. The man or woman who emerges is a new person, viable only as the oppressor-oppressed contradiction is superseded by the humanisation of all people” (Freire 1996: 43). As witnessed in such important speeches of his as the “I am an African” speech, Mbeki understood that the new and liberated South Africa needed the white people, the same white people who were perpetrators or at least beneficiaries of racism and discrimination of black people. Even as an angry victim of apartheid racist discrimination, dispossession and displacement, Mbeki expressed his love of and unity with the white perpetrators and beneficiaries of the colonisation of South Africa: “I am formed of the migrants who left Europe to find a new home in our native land, whatever their own actions, they remain still, part of me” (Mbeki 1998b: 32). The dilemma of fighting and also loving and preserving the oppressor as a fellow citizen and human being is a dilemma of the philosophers of liberation. The philosophers of liberation are creatures and also creators of contradictions; they fight oppression not to annihilate the oppressor but to correct, recover and preserve him as a fellow man. Thabo Mbeki was not born a philosopher of liberation but was socialised, educated and travelled into such a thinker that was a creature of and also creator of contradictions and dilemmas that confront philosophers of liberation the world over. Philosophers of liberation are, thus, critical humanists who understand that there is a human being in the oppressor and that the human being has to be preserved even as oppression is destroyed.

Thabo Mbeki’s Philosophical Triple Heritage Thabo Mbeki’s philosophical formation and growth benefited from what has been called a “triple heritage.” Ali Mazrui (2003) is credited with popularising the idea of Africa as a product of a triple heritage in the form of the continent’s contact with the Western civilisation, Eastern civilisation and its own African traditional history. The thinker who generated the concept of the triple heritage, however, was Kwame Nkrumah (1964), who opined that Africa was supposed to take advantage of its being a home of three civilisations to build a new strong civilisation that benefited from the strengths of African traditions, Western modernity and the Eastern culture and traditions. Nkrumah was of the view that Africa was supposed to turn around the curses of enslavement, colonisation and domination by other civilisations into blessings to build a hybrid political and cultural future that enjoyed the strengths of three civilisations combined. I argue in this chapter that Thabo Mbeki benefitted from a triple-­ world heritage in his socialisation and education in South Africa under apartheid, his education in capitalist economics in the UK and then his communist

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education and military training in Russia. By the time he returned from his travels and educations in Western and Eastern Europe, Mbeki had travelled the wide world not only geographically but also ideologically, as he had imbibed African communalism, Western capitalism and Eastern communism. In that triple way, Thabo Mbeki acquired what Enrique Dussel (2013) called a “planetary” view and sensibility of the world. Philosophers of liberation are those philosophers who know and understand the world not only geographically but systemically and structurally. Mbeki, I argue, travelled the world geographically, intellectually and emotionally. Mbeki endured and also enjoyed moments in exile, in Western and Eastern Europe and then in greater Africa, in Nigeria, Swaziland, Tanzania and Zambia, among other countries. As described by Edward Said (1984) exilic moments can be moments of awakening and reflection in a liberation thinker who is forced to be at home in foreign lands and to be a foreigner in his own home. The exilic moment did make Thabo Mbeki a foreigner in South Africa and a citizen of other parts of the world, if not a foreigner everywhere and therefore a child of the world. As punitive as exile was, it burdened Mbeki with alienation from Africa but also blessed him with a certain sense and sensibility of the world that flavoured his planetary philosophy of liberation. Mbeki came to be philosophically formed in three corners of the world that gave him a three-­ dimensional sense of the world, which made him a rounded and also deep thinker who could not easily be a nativist of some South African or African villages. Thabo Mbeki’s political and economic thinking carried the bold signature of his triple philosophical heritage where he was formed in the West, the East and the South of the world, while remaining rooted in Africa. As discussed later in the chapter, he became not exactly located in the left or in the right, but everywhere and nowhere, depending on what he thought was right, even if it was unpopular like the economic policy of Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR).

Birth and Socialisation of Thabo Mbeki Parents and families do not only give children names and surnames but also contribute to stamping their hearts and minds with political identity and sensibility. Understanding Thabo Mbeki’s philosophy of liberation may not be complete without an appreciation of his birth and family context. Thabo Mbeki’s ancestors, the Amazizi clan, were also known as the Mfengu or the Fingoes part of the Xhosa community of South Africa, in the then Transkei and now Eastern Cape Province of the country. According to Mark Gevisser (2009) Thabo Mbeki’s grandparents became those early converts to Christianity who also easily became privileged British collaborators. Gevisser notes that Thabo Mbeki’s paternal grandfather Skelewu even earned the right to vote because of the property that he owned as a favoured colonial subject. Privileged colonial subjects earned the mockery of being called “the Jews of Kaffir Land,” and the privilege came with the fortune that “their children became the first African

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teachers and journalists, preachers and clerks” (Gevisser 2009: 15), all of which were important occupations amongst the majority colonised. The privileges that colonialism and coloniality flagged before a chosen few amongst the colonised were easily mistakable for progress. Owing to the colonial privilege and opportunity, Govan Mbeki, Thabo Mbeki’s father, was educated to become a teacher, journalist, union organiser and member of the Transkei tribal assembly (Jacobs and Calland 2002). For that reason, when Thabo Mbeki was born in 1942 “he belonged to an important ANC household” (Lodge 2002: 241), a household that was also actively connected to the underground South African Communist Party (SACP). Mark Gevisser (2009) observes that “Mbeki was born to middle class communist missionaries who had set up shop in one of the bleakest, most dispossessed corners of rural South Africa,” which made the privilege of the Mbeki family coexist with the deprivation and poverty of their immediate neighbours. Thabo Mbeki (1972) was to write under the pseudonym of J.J. Jabulani that what compelled him to join the Communist Party was his witnessing of the poverty, the disease and death of the dispossessed in the countryside where he grew up. Mark Gevisser (2009) notes that Thabo Mbeki’s parents “became missionaries for a different cause, communism.” Thabo Mbeki’s father, Govan Mbeki, was not only a communist activist but also a scholar with university degrees in political studies and psychology, and an author of many books. He was also a journalist of note who edited many newspapers, including underground communist pamphlets. Thabo Mbeki’s Mother, Epainette Moerane, had also graduated from Adam’s College as a teacher. She participated in communist activism together with her husband and other activists. To her community she became known for her service as a night schoolteacher who empowered the local peasantry with literacy skills and community development know-how. From his early childhood, Thabo Mbeki was conditioned and politically radicalised by the poverty of his community and communist ideas of his parents who were people of letters and telling anti-apartheid political activists. In his actuality, Govan Mbeki was a brave and fire-eating warrior. He summarised to Mark Gevisser (2009) his political philosophy of courage, “when you go into war, if your comrade in front of you falls off his horse, you must not stop and weep. You jump over him into battle; you learn not to weep” (Gevisser 2009: 43). In many ways, the Mbeki family went into battle against apartheid and lost property and family members and really learnt not to weep but to fight on. There is evidence that Govan Mbeki and Thabo Mbeki held intellectual discussions even as Thabo Mbeki was a toddler. Linda Mbeki, sister to Thabo Mbeki, told Mark Gevisser (2009) of her observation of intellectual activity between Thabo Mbeki and Govan Mbeki: “I would often see them there, poring over documents, they (the documents) were not newspapers, and you knew they were dangerous.” These were most likely banned communist literature and other political texts, and this was “when Thabo Mbeki was” of “a very young age.” Besides discussing banned communist literature with his father, young Thabo Mbeki listened as Govan Mbeki engaged in fierce political

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debates with Epainette and some of his friends at home; Mbeki grew up on the sidelines of fierce intellectual and political debates that seem to have stamped a stubborn signature on his political character (Hadland and Rantao 1999: 16). The political and intellectual climate that prevailed at the Mbeki family home was bound to condition and produce Thabo Mbeki into a troubled and in many ways also troubling thinker and communicator on liberation. The Christian missionary education to which Thabo Mbeki was admitted at Lovedale College in 1955 became a moment of negation for a politically conscious youth. Thabo Mbeki’s “upbringing at Mbewuleni had given him an aptitude for political analysis and a facility in political organisation that had afforded him status and respect among his peers” at the College (Gevisser 2009: 35). The poverty and misery of Mbewuleni, accompanied by deep and wide reading of political literature and discussions with Govan Mbeki, had turned Thabo Mbeki into a brooding youth. The encounter with Christian missionary education and its colonising ideals was to be another moment of awakening and radicalisation for Thabo Mbeki, and it led to his expulsion in 1959. At Lovedale, Thabo Mbeki led political protests and participated in the circulation of banned communist literature amongst the students (Gevisser 2009). Mbeki was never missing in secret political meetings that were held in the dark nights of the Christian mission college. The College, whose primary political role was the taming of the native and the production of a docile black population, could not live with a questioning, organising and thinking young man that carried in him the courage and purpose of his father and other black communist and nationalist activists of the time.

Thabo Mbeki in the West and the East Describing philosophers of Liberation and their role in the world, Enrique Dussel (2013: 16) said the philosophers of liberation are “those of us who are able to combine proficiency in our own regional tradition” in the Global South and also have “familiarity with the latest achievements of European or US” intellectual and political histories. After his formation into a politically active youth in South Africa and expulsion from Lovedale College, Thabo Mbeki arrived at Sussex University in London, 1962. This sojourn and education in the West was to give him familiarity with the Western world and its politics. For an intellectually curious Thabo Mbeki, Sussex University was a revelation and an intellectual and political journey. The University was: Already renowned for its leftist leanings and scholarship, Sussex was another critical period of experience gaining and learning for young Thabo. For the first time in 21 years, he could study in peace and to his hearts’ content. He could argue and debate without fearing arrest. He could read books that hadn’t been banned and hear speakers who were free to speak their minds. (Hadland and Rantao 1999: 30)

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The freedom of Sussex, just like the general life of the West, was in diametric contrast with the discipline of Lovedale College and the police state of apartheid South Africa. That diametric contrast was radicalising to Mbeki, who began to yearn for the same freedom and peace for himself and his people back in South Africa. Geographic and intellectual journeying provokes the philosopher of liberation and makes him aspire for a better life for himself and his people. In the enriching narrative of Mark Gevisser (2009), Thabo Mbeki was exposed to open discussions of every topic and subject from politics to pornography. Here too, Thabo Mbeki got initiated into the “pleasures” of the tobacco “pipe” that is to date one of his personal signifiers. Fruitful debates and reflections were to thrive within the Catholic Community of Resurrection (CCR) that Thabo Mbeki regularly engaged with. Culturally, “the world around Mbeki was Beatles and Blues” (Gevisser 2009: 87). In 1966, Mark Gevisser (2009) records that The Sunday Times described Sussex as having “its many reputations: For brilliance, for laxity, for awareness, for its sense of adventure, occasionally for sheer hollowness, Sussex has no sense of occasion, but neither does it have any pomp” (Gevisser 2009: 86). Another newspaper at the time, Gevisser notes, “The Sunday Telegraph described Sussex University as ‘the University of Sex’ in which ‘one in ten students lived in sin’.” This freedom for human exploration should have contrasted painfully and dramatically with the prohibitions in South Africa, where cross-racial relationships and sexual human contact were a criminal offence in the logic of apartheid. How dehumanised and unfree South Africans were under apartheid should have appeared to Thabo Mbeki more vividly in the face of the freedom and social licence that Sussex University and London offered. Notably, “one of the greatest influences” to Thabo Mbeki and other students at Sussex University was, in the observation of Mark Gevisser (2009: 90), Tibor Barna, a lecturer who like Thabo Mbeki was in exile from his country, Hungary. David Dyker (2009) notes that Tibor Barna was the type of economics lecturer who distinguished himself with taking up radical ideas about the teaching of economics, the business of academia and intellectualism, he was, beyond being an academic, a public intellectual with a radical political and social justice agenda. For the reason that Barna was a devout critique of Marxism, when Thabo Mbeki was still a Marxist, “inside class” Thabo Mbeki “was taught entirely different stuff” (Gevisser 2009: 90). Barna dispensed radical critiques and dismissals of Marxism, but “outside the class room”; Gevisser states that “Mbeki remained a doctrinaire Marxist-Leninist,” and a true product of the affiliations with the New African Movement to which Govan Mbeki belonged. Engaging with and living with contradicting ideas became for Thabo Mbeki a kind of tradition and lifestyle that even manifested in his leadership of South Africa, where he selectively used and rejected some left and some right ideas and policies. The marriage and management of contesting ideas, handling difference and diversity, became but one of the philosophical dilemmas that frequently confronted Thabo Mbeki.

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In 1969, after graduating with a Master’s degree in Economics at Sussex University, Thabo Mbeki was moved to Russia for communist ideological education and military training. If Sussex University affiliated Thabo Mbeki with economic and political ideas of the right, the experience at the Lenin Institute was to familiarise him with communist and leftist political, intellectual and military thinking, making him a rounded planetary thinker. Noting how these experiences impacted on Thabo Mbeki, Mark Gevisser opines that in the process, as a thinker, Mbeki became a child of two demanding ideological parents: The son of both Mother Africa and Father Russia, if you will. For Mbeki was, in the London of the 1960s, in the unique position of being the favourite son of both the nationalists and the communists. Being the favourite son of both theses demanding parents, so often mistrustful of each other, undoubtedly facilitated Mbeki’s precocious climb up the ladder of the hierarchy of the ANC. (Gevisser 2009: 98)

Mbeki became a creator and also a creature of philosophical contradictions and dilemmas. Carrying the African cultural and political sensibility of his birth, Mbeki had to creatively juggle the capitalism of the West and communism of the East. Thabo Mbeki began “ideological leadership training” at the Lenin Institute in February 1969. This training, in the view of Mark Gevisser (2009: 99), was part of “Soviet imperial ambitions” and expansionism into the world. Thabo Mbeki studied under the pseudonym of “Jack Fortune” to protect his identity, since communism was banned in South Africa. Thabo Mbeki did come and go with not only different ideologies but also different names, all of which signify the many identities that a philosopher of liberation has to navigate and negotiate. In Russia, the training was also meant not only to prepare Thabo Mbeki for leadership but also to cement the relations between the Russian establishment and the African National Congress as a liberation movement in Africa. Christian missionaries at Lovedale College earlier sought to produce Thabo Mbeki into a docile and useful native; now the communists in Russia sought to create out of him an ambassador of communism in Africa. After his communist ideological education and military training in Moscow, Mbeki proceeded to further exile in various African countries. “It is clear that his time at Sussex University, his apprenticeship with Tambo, and his experiences in the exiled ANC were crucial formative elements in Mbeki’s life, ideology and politics” (Jacobs and Calland 2002: 13). Mark Gevisser (2009: 167) notes that “Mbeki understudied a succession of powerful older men: His father, Duma Nokwe, Oliver Tambo and finally Nelson Mandela,” an experience that groomed him into a balanced and rounded leader. In exile, “little by little he was becoming a well-rounded, consummate politician: well connected, well read and highly articulate” (Hadland and Rantao 1999: 45). Possibly, Thabo Mbeki did not only learn from the succession of elder mentors, but he also unlearnt some of their approaches to liberation on the way of developing his own philosophy of liberation. Part of the political and philosophical dilemma

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that confronted Thabo Mbeki was to depart from the paradigm of Nelson Mandela’s leadership that emphasised reconciliation, to an emphasis on transformation and the eradication of social inequalities bequeathed South Africa by apartheid. Mbeki did not only rub shoulders with elder and great leaders than he was, but he also learnt from them, unlearnt some of their mistakes and built his own philosophy of liberation using their examples. Philosophers of Liberation become advocates for social justice and spokespersons for the conquered, dominated and oppressed. Enrique Dussel (1985) notes how the vocation of the philosopher of liberation is intellectual and political mission against power at a world scale. For that reason, the philosophers of liberation do not easily enjoy popularity or are showered with praises for their work. As discussed earlier in this chapter, Thabo Mbeki did not seek nor did he find easy popularity and affirmation. He had to stand up against stiff opposition and condemnation for his bold ideas against global superpower and multinational corporations. As a result of his intellectual stubbornness and political courage: Thabo Mbeki is considered one of the most important leaders of his generation: In South Africa, where he served as the country’s deputy president from 1994 to 1999 and as president since June 1999, as a leading African statesman, and as a spokesperson for the developing world. His words command attention in the political power centres of Washington, London, and Berlin and, whether this is intended or not, have consequences not only for his country but also for the continent. (Jacobs and Calland 2002: 5)

Mbeki achieved impact in politics and in the academy as his ideas and political practices grew in their intellectual currency and political purchase. At his helm, Mbeki came to be a key spokesperson of what Gilbert Khadiagala (2010) has described as the “second moment” in African thought following the intellectual vogue of Pan-Africanism and Negritude in the 1950s and 1960s. Internally, in the African National Congress as a political party and in negotiations with individuals and other groups, “everyone acknowledged that Mbeki was the most knowledgeable person in the ANC delegations” who became “the thought leader of the negotiations” (Netshitenzhe 2016: 240) between the apartheid regime and the liberation movement. Globally, Mbeki concerned himself with the decolonisation of globalisation and international relations. In speeches such as “Great Expectations: From Global Village to Global Neighborhood,” Mbeki (1998a) argued for the elimination of imperial and colonial power relations amongst countries of the world—relations that continued to immiserate Africa and the entire Global South. In a post-apartheid South Africa that still endured growing inequalities between the white and the black population, Mbeki (1998c) delivered such speeches as “South Africa: Two Nations,” where he condemned racialised inequalities and proposed social transformation that would make real the dream of liberation and reconciliation in the Republic. Africa, especially the African business and political elite, were

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not spared Mbeki’s criticism and counsel. The speech, “Stop the Laughter” (Mbeki 1998d), is a telling example of Mbeki’s courageous criticism of African heads of states and politicians who made Africa the butt of jokes and the laughing stock of Western countries with their greed and tyranny. The speech, “The Emancipation of Women” (Mbeki 1998e), is one of the messages and gestures that located Mbeki amongst important male feminist leaders in the world as he forcefully centred the liberation of women as a central pillar of liberation at large in the Global South. Mbeki mobilised his knowledge of the world and his wide world of knowledge to position himself as one who spoke truth to power in Africa and at a world scale. His positionality as a member of the intellectual and political elite in the world, and also a child of poor communities of South Africa, gave him a knowing sophistication and worldliness that both his critics and supporters frequently misunderstand. Most observers and interlocutors of Thabo Mbeki’s political thought and practice miss the importance of the geographic and intellectual journey of his formation that shaped him into a philosopher of liberation. In other words, there is no enigma to Thabo Mbeki, he just became an authentic product of his intellectual and political formation that consisted of a triple philosophical heritage, geographic and intellectual journeying in the world. He became a philosopher of liberation who failed in popular politics.

The Economic Ideology of Thabo Mbeki That, in truth, colonialists found Africa undeveloped and went on to underdevelop the continent with their capitalist and racist greed is an angry political truism that was effectively represented in the work of Walter Rodney (1972). Colonialism found Africa developing, be it in her own pace, and disrupted the development while exploiting the people, siphoning resources and pillaging the continent. Lately, this true and unhappy political and economic thinking on the African condition was poignantly advanced by Yash Tandon (2015), who argued that the world economic and political system as owned and led by the West is a war against the rest of the world; even what is called trade at a global level is not actually international trade but imperialism and exploitation that rob such countries as the countries of Africa and Latin America, in the main. Thabo Mbeki’s own economic and political ideologies were not removed from the historical truism that the world system and its invisible but powerful market forces are skewed against South Africa and Africa at large. In one of his speeches that condemned the racist world system that impoverishes African countries, Thabo Mbeki noted thus: Over the recent past, including this very day, we have watched as the rand has somewhat of a mad dance, gyrating to the music of a band of faceless, odourless and non-corporeal musicians who are described as the market. As I tried to listen to the music this band has been playing, I thought I heard lyrics which contained

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the refrain: This, after all, is just another African country! And the recollection came flooding back of a now forgotten phrase: “The White man’s burden.”

That Mbeki had no faith in the market as defined by the world economic and political system was not concealed. The West commanded invisible economic and political forces that decided the power or the weaknesses of currencies of Africa, such as the Rand, that fall and rise to the whims of powerful countries and their interests. In that way, the West was continuing to underdevelop Africa, and the market was indeed a weapon in the war of the West against the rest of the world, Africa in the main. Mbeki’s suspicion and contempt of the world economic and political system was well known, and the African Renaissance he adumbrated was gestured as a way of liberating Africa from the hostage to the enduringly colonial neoliberal world order. That Africa should awaken, which was the gist of the call for the African Renaissance, was based on the fact that the continent and its people had been sent to political and economic slumber from which they had to urgently arise. For the reason of his well-known and also celebrated contempt for neoliberal politics and economics, Mbeki was widely and deeply condemned when he championed in Africa such policies as NEPAD and the South African GEAR, policies that were understood to be neoliberal and punitive to the poor. Such scholars as Patrick Bond (2002) called Mbeki a Thatcherite who spoke left and walked right, and who shined rather than broke the neoliberal chains that bound African economies and polities. Mbeki, under whose effective leadership the overtly pro-poor Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) was abandoned in South Africa, was portrayed in scholarly and journalistic circles as a sell-out of a special kind. Bond (2002) emphasised the idea that Mbeki was not really pushed by any pressure to adopt GEAR and valorise NEPAD, but he actually and willingly jumped, which is an indictment of his alleged happy dance to neoliberal music that he so condemned. I find the condemnation of Mbeki for his so-called neoliberal turn a little simplistic, in that, there may not be any easy victory against neoliberalism, no matter how popular slogans and activisms against it may be. The South African transition from apartheid to democracy, to make matters worse, was a delicate transition that was heavily negotiated and therefore marked by compromise. In actuality, Mbeki became what Mark Gevisser (2009: 189) calls “the seducer,” who was determined to persuade the world, big business and white South Africans that post-apartheid South Africa was part of the modern world, democratic and a home for all who had interest in it. Not only that, but “Mbeki was” also proudly an African “determined to prove to the mandarins of global capitalism that Africans could play them at their own game and compete within a modern, global economy without becoming indebted to them” (Gevisser 2009: 255). Mbeki understood both capitalism and communism too well to be a radical disciple of any of them. He was philosophically formed to select what seemed to work in both ideologies and practices, so that “he was never entirely comfortable with the underpinnings of GEAR; this is evidenced by the way he

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did not pursue structural reform, such as privatization, as vigorously as he might have” (Gevisser 2009: 255). Mbeki operated under international, continental and national conditions and economic and political circumstances of necessity (Bernstein 1999). Populist radicalism and leftist populism would have isolated South Africa from the world and reduced it to an economic and political wasteland, Mbeki pragmatically feared. What was needed, and which Mbeki did, much unpopularly, was radical if painful pragmatism of compromise. Hein Marais (2002: 86) called it the “logic of expediency.” A populist approach to the economy would have been a declaration of war with the punitive world political and economic system, and it would have scared big business, frightened the white population who had benefitted from apartheid and endangered the fragile if vulnerable reconciliation climate that South Africa enjoyed. At the time of Thabo Mbeki in power, as it is in the present, “the litmus test of international approval” was and still is “conformity with neoliberal macroeconomic orthodox” (Ryklief 2002: 111) where “the nation-state has become,” Ryklief notes, “the official caretaker of the global economy.” Mbeki had travelled the world physically and intellectually, and lived in independent African countries way too much, so that he understood how the world truly works. A radical, even if popular contradiction of the global political and economic regime would have sentenced South Africans to more impoverishment and underdevelopment than what has been witnessed. Mahmood Mamdani (2016: xxiv) correctly notes that “the signature documents of the ANC’s economic policy” effective under Mbeki “are known as NEPAD and GEAR,” where the former spelt out a global agenda for Africa and the latter a domestic policy for South Africa. These documents have been understood and judged on whether they were revolutionary or reactionary. I agree with Mamdani that, after all, NEPAD and GEAR were face-saving policies where an African country championed for itself, led by Mbeki, economic and political policies that would have eventually been forced and imposed upon it by a powerful world economic and political order. Philosophically, giving oneself orders and carrying them out before one is eventually forced to do so can be an article of pride and also a facet of political and intellectual pragmatism. The philosopher of liberation that Mbeki became is worldly and practical, responsive to necessity, and will not endanger gained little pockets of liberation in pursuit of impossible and unrealistic wished for gains that may as well be achieved gradually. Thabo Mbeki’s economic and indeed political thought can be understood through another philosopher of liberation, Aime Cesaire, who explained himself as not opposed to communism but determined to see the ideology used for the liberation and happiness of the oppressed: It is neither Marxism nor Communism that I am renouncing, and that it is the usage some have made of Marxism and Communism that I condemn. That what I want is that Marxism and Communism be placed in the service of black peoples, and not black people in the service of Marxism and Communism. That the

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­ octrine and the movement would be made to fit men, not men fit the doctrine d or the movement. And, to be clear, this is valid not only for communists. If I were a Christian or Muslim, I would say the same thing. I would say that no doctrine is worthwhile unless rethought by us, rethought for us, converted to us. (Cesaire 1956: 150)

For Mbeki, because of the way he was philosophically formed in both capitalism and communism, and also African traditions and communalisms, his war was neither for communism nor capitalism, not even for radical African communalisms, but for anything in the many ideologies of the world that would liberate Africans. In his socialisation, education and training, in Africa, Western Europe and Eastern Europe, Mbeki had become rather too lost and also too found in the world to pursue one narrow ideology as if it were a religion. He was bound to experiment with mixtures and combinations of ideas and practices, in pursuit of what would work for liberation as he understood it. And as noted earlier, Mbeki’s understanding of liberation and the struggle for it were a deeply held possession that he was prepared to oppose the liberation movement and popular opinion in defense of.

Conclusion: I Am an African In this chapter I have attempted an exposition of the formation of Thabo Mbeki into a philosopher of liberation. I have illustrated how geographical travel in Africa, in the West and East of the world, combined with intellectual journeying across ideological maps and borders, produced Mbeki into a planetary thinker. In concluding this chapter, I ponder if there was any African left in Thabo Mbeki after his travel, education and training in his exilic moments in different corners and epistemologies of the world. Thabo Mbeki’s most famous speech, “I am an African,” I argue, might be an ironic confession from a philosopher of liberation that was no longer an African but a planetary and post-­ continental philosopher whose home was the whole world, and his political constituency humanity, and his agenda liberation. Philosophers of liberation are those thinkers and political actors who Enrique Dussel called “distant thinkers” who might be physically disconnected from specific locations such as villages and countries but are connected to the human condition at a planetary and post-continental level. If Mbeki was just another African, he, perhaps, would not have had to announce his Africanness in that forceful and poetic way. Thabo Mbeki’s political and intellectual formation consisted of the crossing of far too many physical and epistemic borders to permit nativism and nationalism, let alone villagism. Planetarity and post-continentality are useful terms in describing such intellectual and political actors as Mbeki who end up as successful philosophers but failed politicians. Theirs is another politics and another philosophy, the politics and the philosophy of liberation, where easy popularity, the telling of lies and claiming of easy victories have little or no part. The planetarity of Mbeki’s philosophy of liberation is illustrated in how he

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became neither a capitalist nor a communist but experimented with ideas and practices that he believed would work for liberation, even if they were unpopular.

References Bernstein, B. 1999. Vertical and Horizontal Discourse: An Essay. British Journal of Sociology of Education 20 (2): 157–173. Bond, Patrick. 2002. Thabo Mbeki and NEPAD: Breaking or Shining the Chains of Global Apartheid. In The Politics and Ideology of the South African President, ed. Sean Jacobs and Richards Calland. Pietermaritzburg: ZED Books. Calland, Richard, and Chris Oxtoby. 2010. In Glaser, D. 2001. Mbeki and After: Reflections and the Legacy of Thabo Mbeki. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. Cesaire, A. 1956. Letter to Maurice Thorez. Presence Africaine. Social Text 103, 28 (2): 145–152. Duke University Press. Dussel, Enrique. 1985. Philosophy of Liberation. New York: Orbis Books. ———. 2013. Agenda for a South-South Philosophical Dialogue. Human Architecture: Journal of Sociology of Self-Knowledge 11 (1) 3: 1–8. Freire, Paulo. 1996. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London: Penguin Books. Gevisser, Mark. 2009. Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred. Johannesburg/Cape Town: Jonathan Ball Publishers. ———. 2010. Why Is Thabo Mbeki a Nitemare? In Mbeki and After: Reflections on the Legacy of Thabo Mbeki, ed. D. Glaser. Johannesburg: Wits Press. Glaser, Darly. 2010. Mbeki and His Legacy: A Critical Introduction. In Mbeki and After: Reflections on the Legacy of Thabo Mbeki, ed. D.  Glaser. Johannesburg: Wits Press. Hadland, Adrian, and Jovial Rantao. 1999. The Life and Times of Thabo Mbeki. Rivonia: Zebra Press. Jacobs, Sean, and Richard Calland. 2002. Thabo Mbeki’s World: The Politics and Ideology of the South African President. Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press. Khadiagala, G. M. 2010. Two Moments in African Thought: Ideas in Africa’s International Relations. South African Journal of International Affairs 17 (3): 375 –387. Lodge, Tom. 2002. Politics in South Africa: From Mandela to Mbeki. Bloomington/ Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Mamdani, Mamdani. 2016. Foreword. In The Thabo Mbeki I Know, ed. S. Ndlovu and M. Strydom. Johannesburg: Picador Africa. Mangcu, X. 2008. To the Brink: The State of Democracy in South Africa. Scottsville: UKZN Press. Marais, Hein. 2002. The Logic of Expediency: Post-Apartheid Shifts in Macroeconomic Policy. In The Politics and Ideology of the South African President, ed. Sean Jacobs and Richards Calland. Pietermaritzburg: ZED Books. Mazrui, A. A. 2003. Towards Re-Africanizing African Universities. Who Killed Intellectualism in Post-Colonial Era? Turkish Journal of International Relations 2 (3 & 4): 135–164. Mbeki, Thabo. 1998a. Great Expectations: From Global Village to Global Neighborhood. In Africa the Time Has Come. Cape Town: Tafelberg. ———. 1998b. I Am an African. In Africa the Time Has Come. Cape Town: Tafelberg. ———. 1998c. South Africa: Two Nations. In Africa the Time Has Come. Cape Town: Tafelberg.

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———. 1998d. Stop the Laughter. In Africa the Time Has Come. Cape Town: Tafelberg. ———. 1998e. The Emancipation of Women. In Africa the Time Has Come. Cape Town: Tafelberg. ———. 2002. The African Renaissance: Africans Defining Themselves. In Africa Define Yourself. Cape Town: Tafelberg/Mafube. Mckaiser, Eusebius. 2010. Towards a Common National Identity: Did Mbeki Help or Hinder. In Mbeki and After: Reflections and the Legacy of Thabo Mbeki, ed. D. Glaser. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. Ndlovu, Sifiso, and Miranda Strydom. 2016. The Thabo Mbeki I Know. Johannesburg: Picador Africa. Netshitenzhe, Joel. 2016. The Thabo Mbeki I Know, ed. M.S. Ndlovu and M. Strydom. Johannesburg: Picardo Africa. Nkrumah, Kwame. 1964. Consciencism: Philosophy and Ideology for Decolonisation and Development with Particular Reference to the African Revolution. London: Heinemann. Roberts, Suresh Ronald. 2007. Fit to Govern: The Native Intelligence of Thabo Mbeki. Johannesburg: STE Publishers. Rodney, W. (1972). How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. London: Bogle-L’Ouverture Publications. Ryklief, Sahra. 2002. Does the Emperor Really Have No Clothes ?: Thabo Mbeki and Ideology. In The Politics and Ideology of the South African President, ed. Sean Jacobs and Richards Calland. Pietermaritzburg: ZED Books. Said, Edward. 1984. Reflections on Exile. Granta 13: 15–72. Tandon, Yash. 2015. Trade Is War: The West’s War Against the World. New  York/ London: OR Books.

CHAPTER 17

The Political Economy of the African Crisis Through the Lenses of Bade Onimode Adewale Aderemi, Tobi Oshodi, and Samson Oyefolu

Introduction Even as positivists will go to a lot of extent to argue that knowledge and its production is devoid of powerful influences, many progressive intellectuals have not only drawn attention to the difficulties and naïve oversimplification of this position, but they have also demonstrated that what is generally regarded as knowledge is produced in a context that is shaped by global contestations and local power relations (Ake 1982; Churchill 1996; Foucault 1972; Said 1979). In Africa, there have indeed been such progressive scholars who have engaged the dominant knowledge systems. Though a new generation of scholars are more critical of Eurocentricism and are raising important questions on decolonising the African academia, one of the earliest intellectuals in this regard is Bade Onimode, a Professor of Economics at the University of Ibadan. Indeed, almost six years before Ake’s powerful Social Sciences as Imperialism was originally published in 1979, Onimode already drew attention to the need for African scholars and third world scholars in general to be suspicious of Western economic theories (Onimode 1973; see also Onimode 1977). For him, every theory “derives its content and relevance from the reality of the specific form of the social organisation of economic behaviour in the society it seeks to explain” (Onimode 1973, 348). Thus, theories that seek to explain the economic realities of a society must evolve from a critical study of the structures and workings of that society. Theories must be historically determined,

A. Aderemi (*) • T. Oshodi • S. Oyefolu Department of Political Science, Lagos State University, Lagos, Nigeria e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 S. O. Oloruntoba, T. Falola (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of African Political Economy, Palgrave Handbooks in IPE, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38922-2_17

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not imported from elsewhere. But Onimode’s intellectual contributions go beyond his appreciation of what Foucault (1972) discussed as “the archaeology of knowledge,” he was conversant with the underlying dynamics of Africa’s crisis. Onimode in his works not only challenged the dominant neo-liberal development agenda of his time, but he was also one of the solution finders—or to pluralise Simon’s phrase “medicine men” (Simon 1995)—that engaged the precarious economic situation confronting many countries on the continent. Onimode’s dual role—that is, in terms of mixing intellectualisation with activism—elevates him above many of his peers in a sense that qualifies as Gramsci’s “organic intellectual” that, unlike the “traditional intellectual,” is connected to the masses in his or her society (Strine 1991). To the extent that he challenged Western neo-liberal policies and their impacts on the toiling masses, Onimode’s deployment of political economy falls within the radical genre. In this chapter, we highlight some of the central blocks elemental to an understanding of his political economy. Structurally, the rest of this chapter is divided into four parts. The second section briefly presents the man, Onimode. This is followed by a section that discusses the context—that is, here, described as the African crisis—within which he wrote. A fourth section highlights six elements of Onimode’s political economy, which includes historicity, paradox of plenty, Pareto optimality, local functionality, epistemological poise and activism. This is followed by some conclusions.

Onimode: The Man in Brief Professor Bade Onimode is a Nigerian scholar born in November 1944 (Aremu 2015). He died at the National Hospital in Abuja on 28 November 2001 at the age of 57, survived by his wife, Alice, and four children (PANAPRESS 2001). He was an economist who studied at the University of Ibadan between September 1963 and 1967, the University of Chicago in 1969 and the Ohio State University where he earned his PhD in 1972 (Aremu 2015; Yakub 2011). He worked at the University of Ibadan and was chairman of the Ibadan Branch of the Association of University Teachers, the predecessor to the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), between 1977 and 1978 (Aremu 2015). Under his leadership, the Ibadan teacher’s union supported the Ali-Must-Go protest by Nigerian students. The students and progressive forces were “challenging the government over the increase in school fees and living expenses on the campuses of Nigerian universities” (Akor 2017, 112). Onimode became a professor at his alma mater in 1983 (PANAPRESS 2001) and became the institution’s deputy vice chancellor (Academics) from 1997 to 1999 (Aremu 2015). Apart from leading teachers at UI, Onimode held many other positions. These include: chairman of the Institute for African Alternatives (IFAA) in London (1986–1996); member of the Economic Community of West African States’ (ECOWAS) Eminent Persons Committee; vice chairman for West Africa, the Board of the African Economic and Social Research Forum of the

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defunct Organisation of African Unity (OAU); member, the Research Review Committee of the United Nations Institute for Economic Development and Planning (IDEP) (1992–1998); one-time member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the African Centre for Development and Strategic Studies; member of the Governing Council of the University of Lagos (2000 until his death) and Life Fellow of the Nigerian Economic Society (Aremu 2015; Yakub 2011). Onimode took a leave of absence after his tenure as deputy vice chancellor at Ibadan to work for former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s Independent Policy Group, “a think tank set up to articulate better economic policy for the country” (PANAPRESS 2001). Onimode was also consultant to organisations such as the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), International Labour Organisation (ILO), International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), the Organisation of African Trade Union Unity (OATUU) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) among others (Yakub 2011). Among his most prominent books include: Imperialism and Underdevelopment in Nigeria: The dialectics of mass poverty published in 1982; A Political Economy of the African Crisis in 1988; The IMF, the World Bank and the African Debt in 1989; A Future for Africa – Beyond the Politics of Adjustment in 1992; Issues in African Development in 1995 and Africa in the World of the 21st Century in 2000.

The African Crisis as a Context Scholars and writers are often shaped by their experiences. The written works of two social contract theorists—that is, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke— can illustrate this point. Hobbes’s Leviathan and his conceptualisation of the state of nature was to a large extent influenced by the English Civil War (1642–1651) that led to the beheading of King Charles I. Experiencing the violent overthrow of the monarchy, Hobbes conceptualised the state of nature (i.e. an abstraction of the period preceding the establishment of the modern state) as brutal and nasty. Not only did Hobbes experience the war, he was sympathetic to the monarchy and, as one commentary puts it, “suffered as a consequence the events which he described” (MacGillivray 1970, 180). Conversely, Locke was influenced by the Glorious Revolution of 1688, which was largely a non-violent change in the monarchy in the same society, from King James II to William, Prince of Orange. The non-violent change led Locke, unlike Hobbes, to imagine a peaceful state of nature. Experiences can therefore be an influential factor in the writings of scholars. It is in a similar vein that Bade Onimode was influenced by the African crisis. The African crisis is a complex and hydra-headed one. As Onimode himself puts it: “The African crisis is not merely an economic crisis in the bourgeois or Marxian sense” (Onimode 1988, 1). In spite of this complexity, we are of the view that it manifests in at least two prominent failures: one economic; the other political. Rather than mutually exclusive failures, the economic and the political failures are self-reinforcing and one can, indeed, self-reproduce the other.

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Before highlighting the political and economic manifestations of the crisis, suffice to start with the point that the dependencia argument—a response and alternative to the modernisation theories—was already gaining grounds in Africa in the 1960–1970s (Jackson et al. 1979). So, the emergence of Onimode as a scholar somewhat coincided with the development of the dependencia argument, a radical alternative to the status quo. By the time Onimode matured into an organic and pan-African intellectual, a period that arguably began with the completion of his PhD in 1972 into the late 1970s and early 1980s, his country and many others on the African continent were in the middle of managing or entering political and economic crisis. As at the time when Onimode was finalising his PhD in the USA, Nigeria had just witnessed a bloody civil war between the federal army and the secessionist Biafran forces. The post-colonial ruling elites in Nigeria, as with many other countries, could not deepen the liberal democracy inherited from the colonial powers; and neither were they able to fast-track development as envisaged at independence. Countries like Nigeria and South Africa, which were believed to be pivotal on the continent, either fell under military or racist rule. Between January 1956 and December 2001, there were 108 successful coup attempts and 139 reported coup plots in sub-Saharan Africa, with the period 1966–1985 having the highest frequency of coups (McGowan 2003). Meanwhile, for Pan-­ Africanists like Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere, the project of radical continental unity had momentarily failed with the success of gradualists and sovereigntists in hijacking the institutional and legal architecture of the Organisation of Africa’s Unity (OAU); an organisation that was the ultimate representation of Africa’s collectivity, established in May 1963. And this has largely remained the norm as the OAU transited into the African Union (AU). The economic situation Onimode witnessed did not fare better. The continent, endowed with human and material resources (Onimode 1988), did not essentially propel its development in the face of political instability and within the West-dominated international capitalist economic system. Economic development agenda—represented by Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP)1 at the national levels and the Lagos Plan of Action (LPA) and the Africa’s alternative framework for SAP (AAF-SAP) among others— had either achieved limited success and/or reversed the gains of previous phases on the one hand or were blocked by local and international actors and forces in the case of LPA and AAF-SAP.  By the 1980s, Onimode’s home country was being described as a “prebendal” state (Joseph 1987) and a “crippled giant” (Osaghae 2011). But while the African tragedy continues, in many instances with many countries becoming engrossed in the debt trap and others in intractable violent conflicts that lead to more poverty and the production of child soldiers, by the late 1970s and 1980s many leading African scholars were already aware of the role of colonialism and the global international capitalist system in the emerging situation (Ake 1981; Amin 1972; Ekeh 1983; Rodney 1976). A few of this group championed radical responses

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such as an Africanisation of democracy (Ake 1993) and the delinking of the continent from the powerful metro-poles (Amin 1990). It is within this precarious context that Onimode’s radical work (i.e. intellectualism and activism) existed and flourished. The aforementioned radical scholars became his brothers in arms as he shared many views with them. We proceed to discuss six fundamental elements of Onimode’s political economy in the next section.

Six Elements of Onimode’s Political Economy One commentator noted that “while Claude Ake, a political scientist often used the spring board of economic and material conditions to illuminate issues of power, politics and governance in Africa,” Bade Onimode, who is an economist on the other hand, “drew heavily from political and historical sources to shed light on the socio-economic structural deformities of contemporary Africa” (Ayobolu 2012). This description tempts us to assume that Onimode’s writings are easily amenable to a political economy analysis. But, from the outset, it is pertinent to point out that discussing the political economy of Onimode, or that of any other scholar for that matter, is not as straightforward for at least two reasons. First, scholars are not necessarily static in their worldview; they live in a dynamic world and can thus be influenced by the changes in their contexts. So, a scholar who is considered an Afro-optimist could in one swipe embrace pessimism, thereby erasing the former description, only to assume it back again at another point. They can exhibit certain preferences in one book, and they exhume somewhat countering views in others. Our approach is therefore to limit our discussion to articles and books we cite in our discussion here. Our approach is to discuss features of what we consider to run through one or more of Onimode’s works. Second, the political economy of one scholar is only unique to the extent that they are viewed relative or in differentiation to others. Though it is possible to describe Onimode’s political economy in non-comparative terms, our approach here is to consider it not in isolation but as a part of broader conversation on the African crisis. In engaging the conversation of his time, Onimode’s political economy could be understood from many perspectives. For one, it could be understood from his definition and historicity of what he termed the “African crisis” (Onimode 1988). Another approach is to discuss it from the perspectives of Nigeria’s development challenges. In this sense, his PhD dissertation entitled “Education, manpower and the economic development of Nigeria, 1950–70,” his first book—Imperialism and Underdevelopment in Nigeria published in 1983—and his other works on Nigeria could serve as a guide to illuminate his views. Yet, another approach is to periodise his works in such a manner that the (dis)continuities are ascertained and explicated. For us, we locate his political economy within the context of six interconnected elements that are discernible in his works. These six features include: historicity,

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paradox of plenty, Pareto optimality, local functionality, epistemological poise and activism. First, Onimode—like Rodney, Ake and many others—believed that an understanding of the African crisis must be grounded in an understanding of the historical processes that preceded it. Repudiating ahistorical analyses, Onimode argues that theories that seek to explain the African crisis must reflect the historical dimension (Onimode 1973). As noted in the opening quote to this chapter, while he strongly believes that the African crisis is structural, it is also historical. For him, therefore, any serious engagement of the “historical origins of African underdevelopment must transcend any inherent crisis of African societies and grapple with the central roles of slavery, colonialism and contemporary neo-colonialism in the context of world imperialism” (Onimode 1988, 14). As such, just as scholars like Rodney (1976), Ake (1981) and Ekeh (1983) have noted the epochal impact of slavery and/or colonialism, Onimode’s starting point for the understanding of the African crisis is rooted in the continent’s historical legacies of the contact with the outside. Second, Onimode’s political economy does not consider Africa a hopeless continent. But, as he puts it: “Africa is poor because she is rich” (Onimode 1988, 3). In contending that Africa’s poverty is a paradox, he noted the significant mineral resources of the continent, and he stressed that these minerals are useful for “the production of tractors, cars, railways, ships, planes, steel, etc” (Onimode 1988, 4–5). Many of these products are currently produced in the Global North, but the resources for their production are sourced from Africa. Also nothing that “Africa produces virtually every agricultural and sylvicultural raw material” (Onimode 1988, 5), Onimode acknowledged the human capital of the continent and the market that this huge population represents to the globe. But Onimode (1988, 5) admitted, “in spite of the enormous wealth, Africa remains the poorest continent in the world, and is sinking into deeper crisis.” Pareto optimality is a third feature underlining Onimode’s political economy. By this, Africa’s poverty is not merely a local reality but also a reflection of the development of others. This argument is not new, as Rodney already makes a similar point. By this, an extension of “Africa is poor because she is rich” (Onimode 1988, 3), is a strong believe that Africa’s poverty is caused by an asymmetric relationship with the global economy in which it is disadvantaged. And this causality is traceable to historical and post-colonial exploitation of the continent. For him, central to the exploitative relations between Africa and Europe and America is imperialism. Onimode does not leave his readers in doubt about the role of imperialists in the African crisis. He once noted “the debt crisis is an undeclared silent war of recolonisation of Africa and the rest of the Third World by imperialism” (Onimode 1989, 8). Indeed, if there is any hidden secret in his position on the role of imperialism in post-colonial African economies, his frequent use of the term in titles let the cat out (e.g. Onimode 1978, 1982, 1989). Arguing that capitalism is exploitative in nature, he contends that the “vicious examples of imperialist exploitation in third world countries occur

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through foreign investment, international trade and ‘foreign aid’” (Onimode 1973, 352). He argues that “Exploitation by foreign investors occurs both in the market for final goods and services and in the factor market,” mainly manifesting in “monopoly-monopsony companies in the mining, manufacturing, banking, insurance, transport and import-export industries” (Onimode 1973, 352). He posits that “much of what is termed ‘foreign aid’ is equally exploitative” because it ties such aid “to purchases in the donor country [which] often obliges the recipient to pay higher prices than it could obtain elsewhere” (Onimode 1973, 356). He therefore repudiates economists who neglect this exploitative nature of imperialists. He also draws attention to those intellectuals who support and protect the imperialist exploitation in the home countries. Hear him: And when these foreign companies are monopsonists, they barely pay more than subsistence wages to the domestic labour force of the exploited countries. Then the hired intellectual apologists of imperialism turn round to inform the world that the exploited countries gain technical know-how and higher wages. What is never mentioned is the enormous surplus that the imperialists export back to their home countries as ‘profits’ -the profit on monopoly capital. (Onimode 1973, 352)

Fourth, Onimode is not fatalistic in his understanding of the African crisis in the sense that he does not limit what-should-be-done to outside forces. He engaged the issue of local functionality. By this, Onimode while not advancing delinking from the Global North, advanced alternative options (e.g. Onimode 1992, 2005; Onimode et al. 1990). In the case of Nigeria, his own country, he not only offered alternatives to neo-liberal economic agenda, but he also did the same for managing the country’s challenges implementing the fiscal federalism (Onimode 2003). Among some of his proposed alternative responses to the African crisis includes the adoption of development models that prioritise “the basic needs of the majority of Africans” based on their internal resources; a bottom-up mobilisation which requires “the urgent mobilisation and alliance of workers, peasants, students, women and patriotic professionals” (Onimode 1989, 17); self-reliance and inward-looking strategies, localisation of research and development, diversification, national bureaucratic systems and so on (see Onimode 2005, where he highlighted options for Nigeria). For these alternatives to be useful, Onimode expected “intense political activism” within Africa (Onimode 1989, 8), an expectation that he believed was not yet met during the debt crisis at the close of the 1980s as compared to the situation in Latin America. A fifth element of Onimode’s political economy speaks to knowledge production. He challenges the unquestionable acceptance of Western (i.e. American and European) explanations or what he termed “bourgeois economic theories” (Onimode 1973, 348). He particularly criticised such classical comparative theory as “both imperialistic and exploitative” for condemning

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African countries to exporting primary products from mining and agriculture “in exchange for the manufactures of capitalist economies” (Onimode 1973, 353). Indeed, almost two years before Ake’s powerful Social Sciences as Imperialism was originally published in 1979 as a response to Western theorisation, Onimode already drew attention to “the need for critique of concepts and methodology [that] arises from a basic demand to re-examine assumptions, review standards, evaluate performance, and challenge prejudice” (Onimode 1977, 296). For him, such critique of concepts and methodology is necessary “if the powerful and unique tool of planning for liquidating underdevelopment is not to lose its time-tested potency and become a reactionary weapon of social control” (Onimode 1977, 296). Earlier, he had wondered why “many third world economists whose countries are graphic end-products of exploitation dutifully accept bourgeois economic theories that have banished exploitation from their arsenal of analytic concepts” (Onimode 1973, 348). Onimode is thus of the view that “there is no such thing as a ‘general economic theory’ valid for the different patterns of economic organisation of societies. Rather, what we have are economic theories developed for particular forms of society” (Onimode 1973, 348). Sixth, Onimode was an organic intellectual who moved beyond the classrooms and was not fearful of engaging the spaces of economic governance. For instance, Onimode and other radical political economists (i.e. Professors Ben Turok of South Africa, Senegalese Abdoulaye Bathily, Sheperd Nzombe of Zimbabwe, Sudanese Mahomed Suleiman and Haroub Othman of Tanzania) co-founded the Institute for African Alternatives (IFAA) in London in 1986. The IFAA was set up to, among other things, engage the proponents of the structural adjustment programmes and offer alternatives. As noted above, Onimode was IFAA’s chairman between 1986 and 1996. Suffice to mention two other somewhat interlinked, but relevant experiences that further buttressed Onimode’s brand of activism, which goes beyond personalities. First, Onimode was not only interested in documenting his views in articles and books, he was an activist. As a teacher at the University of Ibadan and the chairman of the teachers’ union, he supported students during the “Ali Must Go” protest, and he was reportedly victimised and repressed by General Olusegun Obasanjo’ military regime (Aremu 2015). In 1978, the students had protested against the Obasanjo regime’s arbitrary increase in school fees at universities and the Federal Commissioner for Education that led the Ministry of Education at the time, Colonel Ahmadu Ali. Osaghae noted the episode thus: In those exciting days of the Marxist-Socialist Movement, [Ola] Oni, Onimode and [Omafume] Onoge were the (student) heroes at Ibadan, a constructive otherness for which they were punished by the neo-imperialist forces that ruled the state when the Ali-must-go struggle provided an opportunity. (Osaghae 2009)

In response, the Obasanjo regime sent armed police and soldiers to quell the protest. The military regime also proceeded to sack radical academics that ­supported the students. The list included Professors Iya Abubakar and Ade

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Ajayi (both vice-chancellors of Ahmadu Bello University and University of Ibadan), Dr Edwin Madunagu and his wife, Dr Bede Madunagu (both of University of Calabar), Dr Laoye Sanda (Ibadan Polytechnic) and others from the University of Ibadan who included Ola Oni, Onimode, Onoge, Dr Akin Ojo and Dr Wale Adeniran (Fayemiwo 2009). The Shehu Shagari civilian government which emerged following the 1979 transition to civilian rule, however, reinstated Onimode and some of his affected colleagues. Second, though he was critical of the Obasanjo regime and was victimised for his support for the Ali-Must-Go protest, when Obasanjo and the Ford Foundation set up the Independent Policy Group (IPG), “an in-house independent policy and research team directly under the president, to advise and research into any issue, matter or idea separately on their own or as may be put to them by the president” (Obasanjo 2014, 600), Onimode—who the president considered as “a highly respected economist of the radical bend” (Obasanjo 2014, 603)— accepted to serve as the project director in 2001. He held the position from May till he died in November of the same year. One important point to re-echo in the two examples of activism is that while Onimode was quick to critique and protest policies he considered to be anti-­poor and anti-masses, he was also ready to commit himself to finding alternatives, even with people who may be his ideological opposite; a solution-finding character that is not new in his writings (e.g. Onimode 1992, 2005; Onimode et al. 1990). He was a radical scholar and a pragmatic activist. Perhaps, it is this delicate balance of the two characters that earned him the description “Afro-­optimist” (Aremu 2015).

Some Conclusions This chapter offers a brief discussion of the political economy of Bade Onimode. Apart from briefly presenting Onimode and the context within which he wrote, the chapter specifically highlights six elements of his engagement of the African crisis. The six elements include historicity, paradox of plenty, Pareto optimality, local functionality, epistemological poise and activism. At this juncture, three conclusions can be made. First, it is interesting to state that in spite of the contributions of Onimode to pan-African and Third World scholarship in general, and Nigeria in particular, still little academic work has been conducted to situate his body of works in the broader conversation on the subject matters of the African crisis. Our chapter hopes to contribute to this dearth by offering six blocks within which a broader interrogation can be based. Second, while we have offered the elements of his political economy, we are not unmindful that the six are not rigidly casted compartments that cannot be unpacked, disaggregated or expanded further. Finally, while the focus of our chapter might have itself been limited by our concentration on the six elements, a potentially useful approach different from ours is to periodise Onimode’s works in such a manner that critically discusses the specific context within which elements of his political economy evolved, crystallised or even faded. This alternative approach could offer an additional prism through which Bade Onimode’s conceptualisation and engagement of the African crisis can be further understood.

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Note 1. The IMF/World Bank’s condition-based interventions introduced in Africa in the wake of the debt crises arising from the oil shocks of 1973–1974 and 1979–1980.

References Ake, Claude. 1981. A Political Economy of Africa. New York: Longman. ———. 1982. Social Science as Imperialism: The Theory of Political Development. Ibadan: Ibadan University Press. ———. 1993. The Unique Case of African Democracy. International Affairs 69 (2): 239–244. Akor, Christopher. 2017. From Subalterns to Independent Actors? Youth, Social Media and the Fuel Subsidy Protests of January 2012 in Nigeria. Africa Development 42 (2): 107–127. Amin, Samir. 1972. Underdevelopment and Dependence in Black Africa: Historical Origin. Journal of Peace Research 9 (2): 105–119. ———. 1990. Delinking: Towards a Polycentric World. London: Zed Books. Aremu, Issa. 2015. Bade Onimode – Remembering the Afro-Optimist. In Reflections on Friends, Comrades and Heroes, ed. Issa Aremu, 170–173. Lagos: Malthouse. Ayobolu, Segun. 2012. Claude Ake and Bade Onimode: Their Last Testaments. September 12. http://thenationonlineng.net/claude-ake-and-bade-onimode-theirlast-testaments/. Accessed 15 Feb 2019. Churchill, Ward. 1996. White Studies: The Intellectual Imperialism of U.S.  Higher Education. In From a Native Son: Selected Essays in Indigenism, 1985–1995, ed. Ward Churchill, 271–294. Boston: South End Press. Ekeh, Peter P. 1983. Colonialism and Social Structure. Ibadan: Ibadan University Press. Fayemiwo, Moshood. 2009. The Chief Gani Fawehinmi I Knew (1). September 15. http://pointblanknews.com/artopn1756.html. Accessed 22 Feb 2019. Foucault, Michel. 1972. The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse Language. Trans. A.M. Sheridan Smith. New York: Pantheon Books. Jackson, Steven, Bruce Russett, Duncan Snidal, and David Sylvan. 1979. An Assessment of Empirical Research on Dependencia. Latin American Research Review 14 (3): 7–28. Joseph, Richard. 1987. Democracy and Prebendal Politics in Nigeria: The Fall of the Second Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge Press. MacGillivray, Royce. 1970. Thomas Hobbes’s History of the English Civil War a Study of Behemoth. Journal of the History of Ideas 31 (2): 179–198. McGowan, Patrick J. 2003. African Military Coups d’état, 1956–2001: Frequency, Trends and Distribution. The Journal of Modern African Studies 41 (3): 339–370. Obasanjo, Olusegun. 2014. My Watch: Political and Public Affairs. Vol. II. Lagos: Kachifo. Onimode, Bade. 1973. Exploitation in the Theory of Political Economy. African Review 3 (3): 347–358. ———. 1977. A Critique of Planning Concepts and Methodology in Nigeria. The Review of Black Political Economy 7 (3): 296–308. ———. 1978. Imperialism and Multinational Corporations: A Case Study of Nigeria. Journal of Black Studies 9: 207–232.

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———. 1982. Imperialism and Underdevelopment in Nigeria: The Dialectics of Mass Poverty. London: Zed Press. ———. 1988. A Political Economy of the African Crisis. London: Zed Books. ———. 1989. The Debt Crisis: Imperialism’s Silent War of Recolonisation. Journal of African Marxists 11: 8–25. ———. 1992. A future for Africa: Beyond the Politics of Adjustment. London: Institute for African Alternatives. ———. 2003. Fiscal Federalism in 21st Century: Options for Nigeria. In Federalism in Africa: Framing the National Question, ed. Aaron T. Gana and Samuel G. Egwu, vol. Vol. I, 161–178. Trenton: African Centre for Democratic Governance. ———. 2005. Options for Nigeria’s Economic Reconstruction. In Nigeria’s International Economic Relations: Dimensions of Dependence and Change, ed. NIIA, 385–403. Lagos: The Nigerian Institute of International Affairs. Onimode, Bade, Mohamed Suliman, and Ben Turok. 1990. Alternative Development Strategies for Africa: Debt and Democracy. London: Institute for African Alternatives. Osaghae, Eghosa. 2009. A Tribute to Omafume Onoge. July 27. http://www.waado.org/ NigerDelta/Memorials/onoge_omafume/osaghae.htm. Accessed 22 Feb 2019. Osaghae, E.E. 2011. Crippled Giant: Nigeria Since Independence. Ibadan: John Archers. PANAPRESS. 2001. Nigeria’s Renowned Economic Professor Bade Onimode Dies. December 4. http://www.panapress.com/Nigeria-s-renowned-economicprofessor-Bade-Onimode-dies%2D%2D13-450608-17-lang2-index.html. Accessed 18 Feb 2019. Rodney, Walter. 1976. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. London: Bogle-L’ Ouverture. Said, Edward W. 1979. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Book. Simon, David. 1995. The Medicine Man Cometh: Diagnoses and Prescriptions for Africa’s Ills. Third World Quarterly 16 (2): 319–325. Strine, M.S. 1991. Critical Theory and “Organic” Intellectuals: Reframing the Work of Cultural Critique. Communication Monographs 58 (2): 195–201. Yakub, Denja. 2011. Celebration of the Life and Times of Late Prof. Bade Onimode. December 6. http://saharareporters.com/2011/12/06/celebration-life-andtimes-late-prof-bade-onimode. Accessed 16 Feb 2019.

PART III

The State and the Political Economy of Development in Africa

CHAPTER 18

Developmental State and the Political Economy of Local Government in Africa: A Case Study of South Africa David Mohale

Introduction The 2008 global economic crisis led to scholars and policymakers alike questioning the known theories of development. The critiques of the neoliberal orthodoxy felt vindicated that free markets are inherently risky to be trusted with an important agenda of economic growth and development. Statists seized the moment to call for the increased role of the state to steer the development agenda. The concept of the developmental state regained its legitimacy to be used as the theoretical framework capable of solving the world, regional and nations’ perennial problems. The authors of the African Agenda 2063 envisage the African continent, whose institutions “at all levels of government will be developmental, democratic and accountable” (African Union 2013: 6). These institutions will be based on the appointment of competent individuals in compliance with the approved rules, professional standards and meritocracy. The African Agenda 2063 commits to building “effective developmental states and participatory and accountable institutions of governance” (African Union 2013: 13). The commitments made by leaders of Africa have direct implications for local government within countries. Whereas the archetypical twentieth-century East Asian developmental states almost disregarded democracy, the emphasis on participation and accountability suggests that people will have to be at the D. Mohale (*) Durban University of Technology, Durban, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 S. O. Oloruntoba, T. Falola (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of African Political Economy, Palgrave Handbooks in IPE, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38922-2_18

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c­ entre of development policies and plans. Local government is best placed to facilitate democratic deliberation to enhance state capacity (Edigheji 2010: 3). If we accept the claim that “developmental states are a cause for development” (Evans 2010: 157), it is inevitable that the twenty-first-century developmental states will have to be bottom-up. The prerequisite, however, will be to start with sorting out all sorts of known problems that bedevil the systems of local governance. For instance, whereas decentralisation has benefits with regard to the promotion of efficiency and the democratisation of planning processes, Bardhan (2016: 875) cautions that local government is not immune from the local capture by collusive elite. Similarly, local government can still be subjected to pervasive political factionalism, as is currently the case in South Africa, across all political parties. According to Mehri (2015), political factionalism can transform institutions into economically incoherent and rent-seeking predatory states. The point about the existence of collusive elite deserves some qualification. Leftwich (2007: 10) observes that institutions are never neutral and that they express the ideas, interest, purposes and power of those who designed them. In other words, they distribute advantage to their designers and disadvantage to those on the receiving end. A decision to decentralise governance may be taken by the decision-makers with predetermined ideas on what they narrowly want to achieve through formal structures and processes. This is not surprising, as the Rational Choice Theory posits that human beings (almost) always want to maximise self-interest. In this context, neo-patrimonialism is possible. According to Masenya (2017: 148), neo-patrimonialism is a system based on informal or personal relationships that blends the public with the private in pursuit of private/personal interests using public institutions and resources. It is essentially “the construction of vast unproductive networks of corruption” (Masenya 2017: 148) between often very powerful public leaders and their private clients for appropriation of state powers and resources. The institutionalisation of neo-patrimonialism results in resources being distributed to a small group of constituencies, unaccountability and the weakening of democratic public institutions. For this reason, political expediency takes precedence when allegations and suspicions of corruption affecting high-level government officials and politicians are made (Sewpersadh and Mubangizi 2017: 2). Notwithstanding the weaknesses (inherent and otherwise) of local government, the development discourse in the twenty-first century can no longer neglect the macro-organisation of states. Centralisation policy might have made sense at a point in history when wars were a norm and national leaders felt duty-bound to protect their nations from external threats. Edoun (2012: 100) also observes that the colonisers preferred heavily centralised systems in order to minimise the risk of capital flight. It is factors like these that would have led scholarship on developmental states to ignore central-local relations (Fine 2010: 173) and, consequentially, local government. This chapter seeks to highlight the indispensability of local government in development. The basic

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argument is that local government is the “primary motor for sustainable development” (Solomon 2002: 256).

Normative Framework for Bottom-Up Development Du Plessis (2019: 10) attributes the growth of international literature on cities to the fact that “local governments have become ever more prominent in global governance and in the pursuit of an international development agenda”. The proliferation of international treaties and the phenomena of urbanisation and climate change mean that local governments can no longer be spectators when it comes to the search for solutions on the problems affecting communities. The implementation of global treaties manifests itself at local level. The failure of policies and plans adopted by multilateral parties on matters such as reduction of carbon emissions affects citizens at local levels when disasters occur that damage private property and public infrastructure. In the past, the exclusion of citizens to participate in affairs that affected them created a trust deficit between the citizens and their governments. Saud and Khan (2016: 397) argue that decentralisation is a direct response to this kind of “flight of faith”. Economically, it is acknowledged that centralisation may not be as effective as it was in the past given the emergence of new complexities (Tsukamoto 2012: 395). According to Bardhan (2016: 874), top-down economic policies are limited by their inability to tap on local information, initiative and ingenuity. Programmes are about to fail if they miss crucial local dynamics which are likely to affect implementation. To minimise problems of policy performance, Bruszt and Vedres (2013: 5) point out that the task of a local developmental agency (municipality) must, amongst other prerequisites, “entail the capacity of local actors to define jointly problems of development, generate programs that accommodate a diversity of local interests, and jointly mobilise resources for implementation”. Local authorities have played important roles in contributing to national economies and the global economy. It is only that the focus has been on states at a national level. A number of studies in the last decade or two indicate that local government is an important role player in national economies across continents and countries. Bateman (2016: 6) argues that: The initial narrative of the developmental state in East Asia focused on the contribution of national-level developmental state institutions promoting development “from the top down”, such as MITI in Japan and Economic Planning Board in South Korea. One important initial reason for this emphasis was that only national government institutions had the scale and scope to successfully build large industrial enterprises and industries and endow them with the most advanced technologies, which was initially seen as the main route to structural transformation and economic growth. However, drilling further down to identify the root causes of many of the most successful development experiences since World War II reveals that much, and in some cases most, of the impetus for

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­ evelopment was actually coming not from “top-down” national state institud tions, but from “bottom-up” sub-national state institutions. Not least because they were more flexible than central governments with regard to changing markets, technologies, innovations and consumer tastes, it began to become clear that sub-­national governments had taken on the responsibility for building their own developmental state institutions, sometimes with and sometimes without the support of central government, and they were achieving major development successes as a result.

China’s sustained rise is attributed to the strategic role played by its local governments. Whereas South Africa grapples with the challenge of migration and unemployment at local government level, China deliberately invested in “a more comprehensive and sustainable system of localised developmental planning” to drive urbanisation (Ahlers 2015: 121). According to Schubert and Heberer (2015: 3), the Communist Party of China employs “a creative mixture that combines the administrative streamlining of local bureaucracies, policy experimentation and innovation, cadre management and, most notably, the economic guidance of the private sector”. Lee (2014) points out that while there is a divergence in views on the Chinese growth model in the last 30 years, there is no disputing the impact of “township and village enterprises” in rural China. Similarly, Chibber (2014: 52) stresses that the state of Kerala managed to sustain respectable rates of economic growth as well as a strong commitment to redistribution as opposed to the national economy. These examples support Bateman’s view (2016) that notions of developmental state and national growth cannot be understood outside their “localness” context. Local government is essentially tasked with the socio-economic development and promotion of democracy. The latter seems pretty much easier if reduced to mundane periodic voting and consultations with communities. However, deepening democracy requires ongoing negotiation and renegotiations with the citizenry. Participation has to be genuine, something that is notably lacking in a number of municipalities. It is in the area of economic development that many municipalities are found wanting, hence the inability to address inequality. Schoburgh (2014: 7) argues that “the problems of the ‘bottom billion’ for whom poverty and high mortality persist” can be resolved with the necessity to reconstruct life from below. The currency of the Fourth Industrial Revolution has serious ramifications for local municipalities with regard to job creation, joblessness and revenue base. Replacement of human beings by machines means that a number of people will be unemployed. This means that municipal leaders will have to start engaging with industry in order to anticipate future employment trends and the implications on skills; these trends will vary by industry and geography (Schwab 2016: 41). Predictions are that low-skilled jobs that traditionally employ women are at risk. Job losses in this category may aggravate many gender and power relations problems afflicting African nations. The domination of men in Science, Engineering and Technology and Management spaces makes

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them safe from imminent job losses. Clearly, local government cannot solve a problem of this magnitude alone. It will have to bank on the efficient and effective cooperative governance and enthusiastic involvement of the private sector. Anticipation by local government leaders is important because cities and other municipal spaces are where “implementation occurs, where the policy rubber has to hit the road, where policymakers come face to face with society’s problems” (Mills et al. 2017: 31). This truth makes local actors more important than their national counterparts, let alone that this is not the dominant thinking.

Developmental State Paradigm This chapter briefly discusses the notion of the developmental state because it believes in its relevance for development in the twenty-first century. Its pre-­ eminence will continue to be the explanatory factor of the political economy for the coming years, as it has been since its inception in the 1980s. While the term means many things to different people, Williams (2014: 7) suggests that it would be useful to make a distinction between the form (features) and effects (outcomes/goals). Knight (2014) proposes that the objectives of the state and the institutional arrangements should be considered as the distinguishing factor between a developmental state and other types of states. Developmental states can also be explained from either political or economic schools (Fine 2013). The political school looks at the structure of the state while the economic school looks at the economic policies being pursued by the state. A point is made that the structure has to be internally cohesive (Chibber 2014: 34) in order for the state machinery to pursue its stated goals enthusiastically. For conceptual purposes and analyses later, the chapter adopts definitions by Johnson (1982) and Mkandawire (2001). The former is the pioneer of the concept based on his thorough study of Japanese economic growth after the Second World War, while the latter is among the authoritative voices in the world, and arguably the longest pre-eminent voice on developmental states in Africa. It is important to clearly indicate that the chapter focuses more on the dimension of causes (structures and roles) than outcomes (e.g. Local Economic Development [LED] is treated as an outcome of the cause). To give an illustration, the ability by municipalities to realise Local Economic Development as a constitutional objective in South Africa is dependent on the calibre of local political leaders and bureaucratic appointees, the quality of institutional arrangements and its impact on formal political-administrative interface and what roles are assigned to individual offices and a municipality in its entirety. Broadly speaking, developmental states are about (1) developmental structures, (2) developmental roles and (3) (developmental)/soaring outcomes. Adopted definitions: A developmental state is the one that sets, as its first priority, economic development. It is identifiable by (i) the small, inexpensive but elite state bureaucracy staffed by the best managerial talent available in the system; (ii) political system in which the

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bureaucracy is given sufficient scope to take initiative and operate effectively; (iii) perfection of market conforming methods of state intervention in the economy; (iv) a pilot organisation that is small, indirectly controls government funds and functions as a think tank. (Johnson 1982, 1999)

An assessment of whether a municipality is developmental will have to take into account the extent to which it prioritises economic development within its jurisdiction. This goes beyond just having a strategy in place. It must look at elements such the budget, institutional arrangements and the intentionality of leadership to attract investment and plug local economic leaks. According to this definition, one of the conditions for a developmental municipality is the insulated, meritocratic bureaucracy. The requirement of market conforming methods is not applicable at local government level, as that competence lies with the national government. While not all municipalities may afford to set up a pilot agency, bigger cities should deliberately consider establishing pilot organisations as engines for economic growth and ensure that they are run completely independent of municipal leadership, while creating platforms and processes for accountability to mitigate against the risk of abuse. A developmental state is distinguished from others by both its ideology and structure. Its ideology is developmentalist in that it conceives as its mission as that of ensuring economic development, in reference of high rates of accumulation and industrialisation. Structurally, the state must have capacity to implement economic policies sagaciously and effectively. (Mkandawire 2001: 290)

This definition supports the first of the first two conditions set out by Johnson. The importance of pursuing and realising economic growth cannot be overemphasised. Again, it is evident that the accomplishment of this important task is dependent on the capacity of the state (a municipality) to implement the policies it has adopted. The capacity is dependent on the combination of the vision of political leaders and the technical expertise of bureaucrats to translate broad policies into tangible programmes and projects. Collins (2001: 12) argues that successful organisations consist of “disciplined people, disciplined thought and disciplined action”. In the context of developmental states, structures can only be developmental if they comprise disciplined people who possess ability for disciplined thought and disciplined action. That is the only precondition for a distinction between great, good and poor states, measured in terms of their policy performance. Developmental structures and developmental roles are therefore the “enduring physics” (Collins 2001: 15) of developmental states “that will remain true and relevant no matter how the world changes around us”. Great results (i.e. economic development) are therefore a function of the specific “immutable laws of organised human performance” (Collins 2001: 15).

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Cardinal Roles of a Developmental State Chang (1999) identifies four broad functions of a developmental state. The first function is that of a centralised coordination, which must be done in the interest of investment decisions by ensuring that interdependence prevails between economic agents. The second function of a developmental state is the provision of a vision for the future of the economy. This imposes the important element of entrepreneurial dimension on the role of the state. Evans (1995) distinguishes between the midwife and husbandry roles to underscore a sequenced process the state has to undertake. The state must help to bring new entrepreneurial actors in the sector (midwife) and then take the responsibility to cultivate, nurture and prod them into production (husbandry). As an example, the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) and Local Economic Development (LED) strategy of a municipality should thrash out the details of how local leaders intend to build its local economy. This role is important for a country like South Africa, whose economy is still largely controlled by a white minority. Local government can play an important role in introducing nascent businesses and sectors and give them deliberate support by entering into agreement with other spheres of government, civil society and progressive businesses. The third function of a developmental state is to build institutions. There is no debate that institutions do matter. They are the main determinants of long-­ term country prosperity and consequential social development (Fritz and Menocal 2007: 532; Wiesner 2011: 24). Building a functional municipality that is able to deliver quality services on a sustainable basis will facilitate durable local government system that is able to cope with complex pressures. Mkandawire and Soludo (1998: 132) argue that what made East Asia unique was the durability and effectiveness of institutional structures. This implies that durability must be the conscious goal pursued by leaders when they build institutions. Chikozho (2015: 5) stresses that “the real challenge in constructing a developmental state lies in designing the requisite institutions for the country to become truly developmental”. While municipalities will always be there, in theory, they need to be encouraged to invest in building support institutions that will mainly help with economic growth in their areas of jurisdiction. The starting point may be to partner with universities in order to build research capacity. The last function of a developmental state is to manage and resolve conflict between societal groups in a manner that does not compromise the collective interest of national growth. State is inherently a contested terrain between different social classes. There are multiple policy actors that participate in a municipal space. Broadly, these are national and provincial government departments, diverse civil society, political parties and the private sector actors. Municipal leadership must have the capacity to resolve big and small conflicts which are bound to emerge from the development planning processes. It will take a combination of political wizardry and undisputed depth of knowledge on a number of areas for municipal leaders to have legitimacy to resolve

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a­ crimonious debates and facilitate local developmental pacts. One of the many ways to resolve conflict is to organise “periodic gatherings at which politicians can negotiate and officials interpret, translate, and deliver outcomes” (Davis and Silver 2015: 467). The function of conflict management can be managed more effectively through “democratically organised public deliberation” (Evans 2010: 43). Drawing on the capability approach, Evans (2010, 2014) argues that democracy is the only analytically defensible means of defining specific developmental goals.

Understanding the Context for Performance of Municipalities: South African Example The broader environment often provides an important context for the performance of any entity. This environment can be either an enabler or a disabler. For instance, Pempel (1999) argues against the romanticisation of bureaucratic autonomy, pointing out that it would have been grossly inadequate if it was not supported by the favourable international environment. In the same vein, local government would not be able to carry out its developmental obligations if there is no true devolution of powers and functions, and if the national economy has serious challenges. The environmental factors are often political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal. Smoke (2015) specifies factors such as the country setting, the national and local political bureaucratic dynamics, available resources and capacities as key drivers of performance. Politics  In his detailed account on the performance of states in industrial transformation, Evans (1995) critically looked at the role of the ruling political parties and dynamics within them across countries. Political parties are the first port of analysis as they provide input resources to the state both in terms of personnel (political leadership and sometimes, appointed bureaucracy) and policy. Dynamics within political parties affect governance structures, systems and decisions. There is wide scholarship in this respect, particularly on the impact of internal divisions and factionalism within the African National Congress (ANC) on municipal governance. The Local Government Turn-­ Around Strategy (LGTAS) published by the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs acknowledges this point. The current ANC Strategy and Tactics (2017) also acknowledges the detrimental effects of infighting on state institutions. Recently, the DA removed Patricia de Lille as the mayor of the City of Cape Town; the coalition in Nelson Mandela Bay removed the mayor and the speaker; Metsimaholo Local Municipality is unstable because of a trust deficit among parties constituting government; the mayors in all big three cities in Gauteng do not know if they will finish their term in office—all these examples suggest that state institutions will not be developmental for as long as the country does not make a transition from populist destructive politics to developmental politics.

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Burger (2018: 17) suggests that politics seems to stand in the way of dealing with big national questions which have potential to undermine state legitimacy. Southall (2007: 19) claims that parties with liberation credentials tend to think that “they have an unchallengeable right to rule, whatever their incompetence and abuse of power. In contrast, there is an appreciation that political parties play important leading roles in complex tasks such as state and nation building. In countries with the history of revolution and revolutionary movements, in particular, political parties serve as the ‘organisational weapon’ is ensuring that the revolutionary project ‘stick’” (Close and Prevost 2007: 1). In South Africa, it would be disingenuous to ignore major economic and social advances which have been made by the ANC since 1994. Venter (2011: 9) commends the ANC for having managed a complex and arduous task of fundamentally transforming the South African political landscape in line with its vision. Economy  Politicians and commentators often lament that policy uncertainty makes it difficult for business to invest in the economy. This observation often misses an important point that all changes that have taken place in economic policy have only been cosmetic, as they all remain faithful to the notion of market efficiency. Seekings and Nattrass (2016: 27) opine that the post-­ apartheid state “inherited a set of institutions and policies that made up a distributional regime that was never intended to be pro-poor”, hence the perpetuation of poverty amid affluence. The only radical change ever taken by the ANC on the economic policy was dropping the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) for Growth, Employment and Redistribution strategy (GEAR). The context of national macro-economy (South African Institute of Race Relations 2014), deeply interwoven in “the dominance of a capitalist system with minimal regulation” (ANC 2007: 2), has become the “the dominant frame for many critical understandings of post-apartheid South Africa” (Hart 2013: 7). The legacy of the apartheid skewed spatial development continues to be the explanatory factor behind the consequent problem of economic dualism in the country. A majority of Africans are still confined to impoverished parts of the countryside or just at the outskirts of the cities. This reality perpetuates the inequality in terms of access to opportunities and services. Metropolitan and urban municipalities have the benefit of larger tax bases and attendant high standard of living and services for their citizens. The dominant feature of developed economies in these municipalities allows them to raise their own sufficient revenue to counter-fund new developments and maintain the existing infrastructure. Another benefit is their ability to recruit and retain the best talent and specialist skills. This coexists with the different picture of small and rural municipalities, which are interlinked to the developed first economy but are marginalised on the basis of their geographic location. Citizens in these areas are excluded from the mainstream economy and are largely dependent on state social protection.

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Adoption of GEAR resulted in reduced government ability to influence poverty alleviation and income redistribution, as the good governance agenda became the mantra of the day as promoted by the World Bank. Good governance has since become the institutionalised key performance area for municipalities, especially since the adoption of the local government strategic agenda by the Cabinet in 2006. The Auditor General tends to be critical of a lack of good governance across municipalities in his findings. Although important, Fritz and Menocal (2006: 7) caution that the insistence by good governance exponents that all good things go together is misleading. Social  Social issues are too many and often result from the extent of inclusion/ exclusion of the economy. For instance, high illiteracy levels in rural areas mean that communities are disempowered from holding councillors accountable. Economies that exclude the majority of citizens from participation run the risk of crime and social unrest, especially with the rising cost of living. Social unrests are typically violent in South Africa and result in arson and vandalism of public property such as community halls, schools, libraries and municipal buildings. Stiglitz (2001: xi) observes that investors are too wary about putting their money in countries where there are high levels of social turmoil. Disinvestment has adverse effects on local economies within cities and municipalities. This creates an enduring negative dynamic as economic exclusion and social turmoil reinforce each other. The sections of society excluded from the economy are associated with poorer health and nutrition. Acemoglu and Robinson (2013: 78) expose the correlation between low level of education and economic institutions that fail to create incentives for parents to educate their children and by political institutions that fail to induce government to build, finance and supports schools and wishes of parents and children. The National Development Plan (NDP) acknowledges that the quality of education is a serious threat to a country’s development ambitions. At the local level, development planning is likely to suffer when communities lack the required political and technical skills to influence IDPs, thus inadvertently perpetuating the practice of “planning by rumour1”. A responsive municipality will have to understand deeply the social profile of its locality, failing which the very scant resources may not be used strategically. South Africa is becoming youthful. Municipalities are becoming youthful. This reality inevitably forces the change in approach to development planning and the content of development plans. Hard choices will have to be made. Environment  Satgar (2014: 126) observes that the twentieth-century developmental state did not pay attention to the ecological crisis that resulted from industrial modernisation. The current escalating problem of climate change imposes the need for development initiatives to be environmentally sensitive. The NDP recognises the importance of environmental sustainability. The ­current crisis of water shortage in Cape Town and the drought experienced in

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a number of provinces in the last few years point to concerns around environmental sustainability. The agricultural sector has been hardest affected by these marked climatic changes, which in turn affect food prices. The frequency of disasters experienced in virtually every part of South Africa in recent years puts maintenance and capital expenditure under serious strains in municipalities. Many municipalities often struggle to replace destroyed infrastructure and public amenities. Technology  Automation of processes has the potential to increase efficiencies of organisations. A number of municipalities are still stuck in archaic manual processes, causing unnecessary delays, particularly in procurement processes. Automation can also lead to municipalities saving some money they spend on paper to produce copious agendas for meetings of council, council committees, management and several internal meetings. Copies of agendas could be sent via email to members without having to print and make copies. As pointed out earlier that the country is becoming youthful, this places an obligation on a range of services local government needs to provide in response to this reality, that is, Wi-Fi in strategic spots. Lastly, the youthfulness of municipal spaces also has implications for public participation methodologies. Young people are more likely to opt for online engagement than spending an hour at a meeting in a community hall. Legal  There are various pieces of legislation, including the national constitution, that regulate the affairs of local government and its relationship with national and provincial government. There are also a number of regulations, particularly published by the National Treasury, that reinforce the plethora of legislation already developed for local government. The section of findings will comment on the impact of regulatory framework on the performance of municipalities. Cooperative Governance  The national institutional context is an important factor in explaining the presence and characteristics of cooperative governments (Hulst et  al. 2009). The foreword by the Chairperson of the White Paper Political Committee acknowledges that “it will require very specific commitment and effort from national and provincial government and not in the least, from councillors and administrators within local government” (1998) for municipalities to help create a better life for all. There is an increasing scholarship on the failure of cooperative governance in South Africa. The eminent source document on the side of government is arguably the Presidential Review Report that was produced by the Mandela administration in 1998. The NDP notes that “no sphere of government can succeed on its own” (Presidency 2012: 431). This means that all the three spheres of government need to dedicate efforts to build and sustain coordination as a requisite function of developmental states. Intergovernmental coordination is ultimately the

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prerequisite of functional and responsive social pacts which an aspirant developmental state needs to build. Coordination can serve as the institutional device “to channel opportunistic behaviour” and “particularistic preferences” and ensure some collective stability (Thoenig 2002: 128). The success of the intergovernmental relations also hinges on informal and less tangible elements. One of the crucial roles of institutions is to provide solutions to coordination to avoid the risk of development being thwarted (Williams 2006: 212). The democratic state has not managed to improve the effectiveness of intergovernmental relations for better implementation of policy. This is notwithstanding many structures that have been created at different levels of government to improve coordination. In a discussion document titled “Reforming the South African Government Planning System”, the National Planning Commission (Presidency 2015: 14) recognises the disconnection between the national planning function from key developmental priorities of provinces and municipalities. In a separate study that focused on the role of provinces on economic policy as their contribution towards the realisation of a developmental state, Turok (2010) found that all nine provinces reported that coordination across government was very weak. According to this study, four provinces admitted that they had poor links with municipalities and did not meaningfully participate in drafting local development strategies. For municipalities to succeed in their major developmental task, there is a need for the machinery of government to operate in a state of interinstitutional harmony (Besdziek and Holtzhausen 2011: 124; Reddy and Yorke 2003: 43).

Reasons for the Deferred Developmental State in South Africa This section is based on the interviews that were conducted with high-ranking officials from all the organisations who participated in the study. It is divided into selected exogenous and endogenous factors that affect the performance of municipalities along the analytic framework of developmental structures and developmental roles. Table 18.1 below illustrates the analysis of respondents. External Factors This subsection discusses a few critical drivers that provide an important context for policy performance of municipalities.  olitics and Intra-political Party Infighting P It was found that seven of the eight municipalities were affected by ANC internal divisions in the regions and the province, resulting in impromptu decisions to recall some leaders and eventually eject some senior administrators out of the system following changes in party regional and provincial structures. The culture of political entrepreneurship was evident in all municipalities. The

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Table 18.1  Breakdown of study respondents ANCa

Mayors

Municipal managers

Institutions supporting local government

Target Actual % Target Actual % Target Actual % Target 5 4 80 16 9 56 16 13 81 9

Actual % 7 78

a 4 participants from the ANC were three former regional leaders, 1 as chairperson and 2 as secretaries. The fourth respondent from the ANC was the former provincial secretary

deepening of these problems introduced and institutionalised an interesting phenomenon in the Free State province: (1) mismanagement was rewarded; (2) mediocrity got celebrated; (3) talent got squashed, frustrated and isolated; and (4) questionable businesses were awarded tenders with no evidence of track record of delivery.  isjointed Planning Across Spheres D Respondents confirmed that integrated planning does not work. National and provincial governments delegate junior officials to IDP representative forums without mandate. District municipalities fail to coordinate and lead planning in their areas between and among adjoining municipalities. One of the systematic problems is that both local municipalities and a district municipality have the same timelines for submission of IDPs and budget. One respondent was livid that representative forums are just about ticking the box. She cited an example where the municipality indicated that they needed a clinic, but the provincial government built a school. J uniorisation and Strangulation of Local Government A majority of the respondents who had worked in or were still in municipalities felt that local government was strangulated and emasculated. For instance, there was a time when municipalities had to produce 221 reports annually. This did not allow leaders and administrators enough time to focus on strategic issues. They complained that they ended up focusing more on compliance than real developmental issues for fear of reprisals from mainly provincial leaders. Secondly, municipal stakeholders expressed concern over a culture of impromptu meetings that would be convened by provincial government. They were not allowed to send apologies or delegate because of a culture of fear and intimidation in the province. At times, local actors would be instructed by provincial government to cancel their own planned activities. The climate in the province does not allow local actors to think and act freely. Their thoughts and activities must always be sanctioned elsewhere. There is a charge that national government does not have trust in the abilities of those leading municipalities. This is evidenced by the tendency of national government to prescribe the minute detail on matters of common sense which could have been left as just a guiding principle (Steytler 2008:

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520). This has resulted in the over-regulation of municipalities, which has become a serious obstacle for municipalities with less capabilities. Demarcation The determination of municipal outer boundaries and ward delimitations should be deepening constitutional democracy, facilitating socio-economic transformation and delivering spatial justice. Demarcation is unable to realise the second and third goals in part because of the path-dependent economic policy pursued by the democratic state. Internal Factors These are internal systematic issues that municipalities can address on their own, irrespective of the outside environment, in order to create organisational internal efficiencies.  ig Organisational Structures B Municipalities of executive types were found to have big organisational structures that did not necessarily create efficiencies and value. The political arm has no less than ten full-time office bearers. No one could defend the role of the Chief Whip in a council in relation to the mandate of local government. The role of the full-time chairperson of the Municipal Public Accounts Committee (MPAC) was always going to be a problem given that the executive and legislative powers are vested in council, and MPAC becomes just another subordinate committee of council without overriding powers. It was not clear what the role of the deputy mayor is. There was no justification of too many members of mayoral committees. All these full-time office bearers come with their own support staff who add burden on already overstretched operational budgets of municipalities. The same municipalities have either executive or senior directors below the accounting officer. There are directors below executive/senior directors. Respondents were not able to differentiate the roles of executive/senior directors from directors/managers in municipalities. A majority felt that one layer could be dispensed with in order to reduce bureaucratic red tape, redirect some resources from consumption to productive activities, that is, maintenance of infrastructure and improve accountability, once it is clear on who plays which role. Political Pathology The Principal-Agent Theory (PAT) is based on the assumption that agents are prone to sabotage organisational interests (Sobol 2016: 336). This assumption then requires principals to exercise oversight over agents as a preventative measure from possible subversion of the interests of the organisation. However, Perrow (1986) argued that these assumptions are inaccurate if one looks at the asymmetry of power relations. According to Perrow, principals are actually

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more likely to break contracts, exploit agents to do the wrong things, and can even fire and replace agents on spurious grounds. Principals are not immune from opportunistic behaviour. With regard to relationships between and amongst principals, some individuals may pursue self-interests that contradict the collective interest (council). Thompson (2007) calls this situation “principal subversion”. Thompson (2007) also writes about the “principal drift” which represents lack of unity between a collective of principals (council). Menz (2014) names the similar situation “principal slippage”, where some principals (members of council) work intentionally against the formal work of fellow councillors and administrators. According to Gutner (2005: 11), principals can also subject agents to “antinomic delegation”, which is essentially a “delegation consisting of conflicting or complex tasks that are difficult to institutionalise and implement”. All these pathologies—principal subversion, principal drift, principal slippage and antinomic delegation—were found to be preponderant in the units of analysis largely linked to the prevalence of factionalised politics within the ruling party. Fights between speakers and (executive) mayors were commonplace. These fights created divisions in councils. For instance, the mayor and select group of councillors connived to fire the municipal manager in Mangaung without the support of the speaker and other councillors, whereas the mayor-speaker tension in Nala led to the appointment of a junior official as the acting municipal manager. Some respondents admitted that the creation of a full-time chairperson of MPAC created confusion in the system, especially when the incumbent thinks that the powers of the committee supersede council authority. Some councillors used senior administrators to undermine the delegations made within law by the political offices (e.g. Lejweleputswa District Municipality). Almost all accounting officers confirmed the existence of antinomic delegation with possible results of prison if some instructions were implemented. S trenuous Space for Senior Administrators Political pathologies made the working climate very strenuous for senior administrators in municipalities. This was often characterised by interference of councillors in administration, with unlawful decisions often imposed on administrators with possible consequences of criminality. The average turnover of municipal managers and Chief Financial Officers in the units of analysis from 2000 to 2014 was 2.5 years. It is a matter of common cause that a majority of municipalities in the Free State have been stuck in either disclaimer or adverse categories in findings for a number of years. With the exception of Tswelopele Local Municipality, those that registered improvements in audit findings tend to regress in the next financial year. It is possible to link the stressful working environment with high turnover and subsequent parlous performance due to the continual loss of institutional memory. One respondent likened the behaviour of politicians, particularly mayors, to “wild animals”. The other respondent admitted that he only remained in his employment to draw a salary but

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would jump at the next available opportunity to leave the municipality. According to a respondent from the Auditor General’s office, working for a municipality has real reputational risk on one’s profession as it is a common knowledge that politicians put pressure on administrators to implement unlawful instructions.

Discussion and Conclusion This chapter argues for the need to build sustainably functional municipalities in order for local government to deliver on its constitutional development mandate and solidify the base for the construction of a democratic developmental state in South Africa. It is only when municipalities are sustainably functional that noble goals of deepening constitutional democracy and facilitating socio-economic development can be met. However, the functionality of municipality is not entirely dependent on internal factors and formal prescripts. The reason for dysfunctionality and incoherent municipal apparatus is very much the function of external environment. Municipalities will hardly be developmental in an environment of divided, factional political parties. The nascent coalitions in some metros in the country and Metsimaholo Local Municipality in the Free State are proving that coalitions are problematic. The dominance of the ANC in a number of municipalities, and of the DA in the City of Cape Town, is also not creating stability in leadership. The stunted economy means that smaller, rural municipalities will continue to be dependent on meagre grants from national government. The economic policy pursued by national government seems to appease international credit agencies more than address the real historical spatial inequality at home. There are municipalities which almost literally have a zero base for revenue. The grants they receive through the equitable share largely pay salaries and take care of their operational budgets. While we cannot overlook problems of corruption, funding for local government remains grossly inadequate. It was estimated to be less than 10% of the national budget at the time data was collected. The lack of basic infrastructure in these areas is the big inhibitor for potential business investment. It may as well largely explain the failure by the democratic government to build a single city in 25 years. Internally, municipalities need to sort a number of basic things. There is no evidence of a correlation between big organisational structures and responsive performance. There is a need to make structure smaller but efficient. This would also necessitate careful selection of candidates with requisite skills to deliver on what is expected. Authorities need to move with speed to professionalise local government in line with the commitment by the NDP. Clearly, there is a need for politicians to be trained on interpersonal skills. Councils need to pass policies that incentivise performance, especially because it is difficult to attract high technical skills in small municipalities. Provincial government may need to rethink the wisdom of capping salaries of senior municipal administrators in accordance with the size of a municipality. That may just be a

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disincentive to attract experienced administrators. If appointed, they may only be there to pass time while looking for greener pastures elsewhere. Developmental functions are dependent on the vision of political leadership and technical skills of administrators. These functions may include (1) deliberate husbandry of sustainable small-scale local economic initiatives, (2) creativity in finding new revenue sources, (3) intentional building and nurturing of local development networks/pacts and (4) educating and empowering communities on processes, structures and systems and their attendant responsibility.

Note 1. I term the dominant practice where IDPs are developed by consultants on behalf of communities “planning by rumour”.

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CHAPTER 19

Circuits of Production and Channels of State: Pastoralists and the State in the Northern Frontier District of Kenya (1910–1958) Natasha Issa Shivji

Introduction The moment of political crisis within the modern nation-state, I propose, is expressed at its apex through demands for secession from the nation. These secessionist movements lay claim to various historical narratives of belonging to a historical time and space outside that of the dominant discourse of the centralizing state and of having interests that are not “represented” within the centralizing state. I historicize the claims that were made by secessionist movements in the Northern Frontier District (NFD) of belonging to the “Greater Somali” region through their shared pre-colonial history of flourishing city-­ states and networks of trade, and their homogeneity as people sharing a single language and religion. I analyze these claims to produce a historical narrative that places the moment of political crisis-secession firmly within pre-colonial histories of long-distance trade and migrations that were disrupted during the colonial period but reconstituted on the periphery to create relations of exploitation and divergent class interests. The secessionist movements1 not only revealed a moment of political crisis but additionally economic contradictions that could no longer be concealed by the rhetoric of the nation or the centralizing functions of the state. The secessionist movements constituted within them various class interests and only formed a united front insofar as these class interests (between small shop-owners, land owners, peasants and a laboring

N. I. Shivji (*) University of Dodoma, Dodoma, Tanzania © The Author(s) 2020 S. O. Oloruntoba, T. Falola (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of African Political Economy, Palgrave Handbooks in IPE, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38922-2_19

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class) were concealed through pre-colonial relations of interdependency, resurrected during colonialism as relations of exploitation and security. This chapter sets the history for the formation of these class interests and the ways they were expressed in a moment of political crisis. The relationship of colonialism to the “native” populations was not a consolidated relationship. The process of accumulation took place at different levels and created unresolved economic contradictions. The colonial center created and approved administrative policies that would maximize the extraction of surplus and revenues from the colonies by creating laborers. The colonial administrators and settlers in the colonies however, treated the colonial subjects in a myriad of ways to maximize and facilitate private capital accumulation by individual colonial administrators and European settlers engaged in business. The colonial state straddled between syphoning surplus and revenues to the center and maximizing the profits of business enterprises of European settlers. This contradiction in the demands of capital in the center and the periphery created economic differentiation of the colonial subjects to facilitate the accumulation of capital by the state and the European settlers. In the case of the NFD the colonial administrators sought to suppress indigenous livestock production in favor of European settler livestock owners but at the same time needed to maintain a livestock export economy at the lowest cost possible, a context that often meant the interests of the European settlers contradicted those of the colonial state rather than existed in harmony with the colonial state. Additionally, the contradiction between the interests of the settlers and the colonial state, I argue, played out at the level of production, that is, to differentiate the colonial subject, as laborers, indirect administrators, peasants on plantations, traders and so on rather than at the level of the colonial state. At the level of the state, the contradiction between general colonial policy and the practice of colonial settlers and administrators at the local level resolved itself by placing the burden of re-production of labor on the pre-colonial relations of production, in order to meet the interests of both the settlers and the requirements of the colonial state. This created three phenomena in the colonial context of the NFD. First, the interests of the colonial state and the settlers were not always in harmony; however, this contradiction was resolved by deflecting the burden of reproduction of labor on the peasants and their social networks of dependency that existed in the pre-colonial period.2 Second, while the colonial state sought to advance capitalist development to maximize profit, the state relied heavily on pre-colonial social relations of production in order to fetter the cost of capitalist development. Third, the continued existence of pre-­ colonial social relations hindered the full advancement of capitalism in the colonies, yet the colonial state created classes, rigidly defined by clans, of the colonial subject that did not exist in the pre-colonial period such as traders, white-collar administrators (Isaaq and Harti in Nairobi and Mombasa) and peasants (in the NFD). While I am not proposing that this differentiation of the colonial subject allowed for any form of accumulation by the colonial subject in a capitalist sense (that is  either through primitive accumulation or

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through expanded reproduction,3 under colonialism), I propose that the differentiation of the colonial subjects along lines of economic activity and status created divergent class interests of the subject. Subjects under colonial rule and marginalized under the independence state, Somalia in particular, would find common expressions of resistance but with diverging economic and political interests. While the political expression of secession was unified, the social relations of production were contradictory to each other. Often expressed as precolonial relations of dependency between subordinate and economically affluent groups, they reflected forms of exploitation between petty traders and small farm holders and pastoralists. My central thesis in this chapter is that while the relationship between the colonial state, the European settlers and the colonial subjects was constantly in flux and quite often contradictory, colonialism as a stage of capitalism had a subsuming effect on the social relations of production. However, since capitalism is not a thing but a set of social relations of production, the subsuming effect was not devoid of inherent contradictions. These contradictions, I argue, created fissures in which resistance to the colonial state became possible, yet fostered some of the seeds of capitalist development in the colonies such as class formation and pockets of accumulation that would rear their heads after independence.

Pre-colonial Social Relations The focus of the limited literature on the NFD tends to use Somalia (both North and South) as a framing reference for the politics and social organization of the NFD. The focus of the literature is threefold: first, a narrative is built through the colonial lens, linking British interests in the NFD to their interest in Northern Somalia and the larger livestock trade, or the NFD as a military frontier against the Italians in Southern Somalia.4 Second, through the sociocultural lens of the specificity of clan divisions of the Somalis. Clan, as it was supposedly organized in pre-colonial Somalia, becomes the basis for analyzing the social and economic landscape of the NFD.5 Third, the specificity of Somali society and culture as a homogeneous block different from the rest of Kenya with a shared language and religion. Hence, the subsequent secessionist movements in the NFD to join with the post-independence Republic of Somalia are explained as a result of the sociocultural homogeneity of Somalis.6 These three formulations used in the writing of the history of the NFD produced area-­ specific histories that  neglect, not necessarily through lack of empirical evidence, the semi-proletarianization of the pastoralists under colonialism and the relationships of dependency of the pastoralists to the traders and shopkeepers that would be redefined under colonialism. The point of differentiation between the Somalis then is not clan, and the point of political unity is not their inherent homogeneity as a people. Rather, differentiation is a result of the contradictory practices of colonialism in the colonies, mobilizing various ethnic constructs to benefit the colonial enterprise. Unity of the Somali people is a

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political expression, in a historical moment, as a form of resistance against the domination of both the colonial and post-independence state, concealing the class interests of the “Somalis” as a single category. A focus on regionalization and clan as analytical frameworks, in the words of Archie Mafeje, “over-­ simplifies, mystifies and obscures the real nature of economic and power relations between Africans themselves and between Africans and the capitalist world.”7 Furthermore, a focus on clan relations obscures the political formations in the form of large Islamic city-states across regional and “clan lines” in pre-colonial Eastern Africa. Part of my argument is situated historically in the pre-colonial social relations formed through the long-distance trade leading up to the Indian Ocean and the caravan trading routes. I propose to focus on these trading routes as the dominant framework to engage with the history of the NFD, to emphasize the integration of the Somali region in larger networks, particularly the Indian Ocean trading networks along the East African coast and the relationships to pastoral communities on the ground throughout the Horn of Africa. Many of these trading routes were disrupted during the colonial period, but fragments of their histories were resurrected at different points during and after the colonial period to emphasize origins to Arabia and Asia so as to gain favor with the colonial administrators (as in the case of Harti and Isaaq traders)8 and to reconstitute relations of dependency (patron-client relationships) in times of economic crisis. I focus on these elements in large part to move away from the emphasis on clan identities as a defining pre-colonial feature of the Somalis and instead to situate Somalis within cross-regional and networks of exchange not limited by the rigidity of “borders” and “clan identifications” as would be the colonial strategy in the later years. Typically, most histories of the Somalis have been written by charting out the clans, sub-clans and ethnic differences of the Somalis in order to frame the subsequent history which unfolds, a grave injustice in analysis of the complexity with which social organization took place outside the colonial systems.9 The caravan trade and the long-distance trading routes across the Horn of Africa and the Indian Ocean world were crucial in creating social relations of dependency that were not always encapsulated by the strict lineage groups. The Somalis throughout the Horn, including those in what is today the North Eastern province of Kenya (NFD during the colonial period), engaged in the camel caravan trading routes that linked the hinterland with the Indian Ocean as producers, traders, caravanners and financiers, within the context and often under the influence and protections of city-states. Some of the main trading goods that moved across the camel caravan routes between the Tana and Juba rivers were animal trophies and products such as ivory, rhinoceros horns, leopard skin, giraffe hides, ostrich feathers and hippopotamus teeth and livestock. The caravanners relied heavily on their relationships to coastal traders as middlemen, and to the pastoralists and poachers as producers. The pastoralist groups largely lived independently of the caravan trading routes insofar as they did not directly engage in the trading activities and capture of animals for the purpose of trade in goods for conspicuous

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consumption.10 Perhaps it is for this reason that I.M. Lewis focuses heavily on the insulated social organizing of the Somali pastoralists rather than their relationship to the trading routes (See footnote 9). However, I argue, two aspects connected them to the trading routes: in the context of city-state formations on the coast and the spread of Islam connecting the pastoralists in the North with the agriculturalists in the inter-riverine area between the Juba and Shabelle rivers, and with the coastal city-states of Berbera, Zayla, Mogadishu, Merka and Barrawe. The pastoralists engaged in these trading routes by paying tribute to the city-states in exchange for protection from the city-states as they moved southward toward the Juba River and eastward toward the Indian Ocean coast. Interestingly, one of the major groups that made this southward migration in the ninth century was the pastoralists from the North of Somalia (later works claim these pastoralists were of particularly the Isaaq clan, but this cannot be evidenced as factual due to the fluidity of clan affiliations in the pre-colonial period). This group came to occupy parts of the inter-riverine area and exerted pressure on the coast under the protection of the city-state of Mogadishu. I posit, the migration of the pastoralists to the south in these earlier migrations in the ninth century meant that the pastoralists had already begun to interact with agriculturalists in the inter-riverine areas and traders on the coast.11 Islam fostered peasant allegiance to the sultanates and a language of exchange. The pastoralists used livestock for subsistence, as a form of tribute to the sultanates and as a form of exchange with traders who used camel in particular for the caravan trading routes, to bring animal produce and trophies from the hinterland. The caravanners traded with various communities including the Turkana and Sanguru for rhino horns and leopard skins. The Ajuraan city-state perhaps best symbolizes the relationship between the pastoralists and the coastal traders. It was a rare occurrence for a pastoral state to achieve the level of centralization, which enabled it to play a central role in the trade between coast and the hinterland, as the Ajuraan city-state did. The Ajuraan city-state, at its height between 1550 and 1650, dominated much of the Benaadir coast from the upper reaches of Shabelle to Qallafo and through the coast where the Muzaffir aristocracy (a tributary to the Ajuraan) resided.12 By the seventeenth century, internal political fragmentation and the Portuguese invasion and disruption of the Indian Ocean routes led to the disintegration of the Ajuraan city-state. Many of Ajuraan pastoralists and Ogaden pastoralists from the inter-riverine areas migrated southward in an attempt to survive the demise of the centralized state and in search of pastureland. By the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries they began to occupy the area that would later on be called the NFD. They met with Boran Oromo who resided in the NFD area and initially formed relations of dependency with the Boran to gain access to their grazing areas. As shown in the above summary, the Somali people in the Horn were not composed of insulated groups organized and only relating to one another via clan lineages. Rather, the history of the Indian Ocean world is crucial in contextualizing the formation of various relations of dependency and exchange that linked the hinterland Somali pastoralists with the East African coast.

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Though disrupted by European penetration beginning in the seventeenth century, these relations would reappear in fragments at different historical moments in shifting economic relationships between the Somali people. This history also plays a crucial role in firmly situating the NFD between the East African Coast (through trade and intermarriage between the Benaadir from Mogadishu to Sofala), the hinterland of present-day Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia (through relations of dependency with different linguistic groups such as the Ajuraan and Boran in the NFD) and Somalia at large (by virtue of the southward migration and expansion of the Ajuraan city-state).

Somali Pastoralists in the NFD Colonial rule initiated a series of material contradictions between the pre-­ colonial societies and the violent introduction of capitalism. These contradictions often meant that the colonial state, while functioning as the site of accumulation, was constantly forced to redefine its imagination of the colonized vis-à-vis accumulation. Consequently, the colonized used the spaces made available by these contradictions to lay claim to the state and the process of accumulation. The Somali pastoralists in the NFD presented a particular set of these contradictions under British colonial rule. A nomadic people relying on livestock, the British administered the Somali by redefining the limits of their livelihood without actually incorporating their livelihood into the colonial economic structures. Hence, the Somali pastoralists were often left to their own devices, which at times meant resisting the state structures while at others it was beneficial to adopt spaces of opportunity opened by these same state structures. This section looks at the relationship between the Somali pastoralists, who were considered “native” Somalis residing in the NFD, to the European settlers and the colonial state. I argue that the measures imposed by the colonial state such as cattle licenses, controlled mobility and grazing, development schemes that resulted in quarantining livestock and irrigation for agricultural development favored the advancement of European farmers and ranchers to the detriment of the Somali pastoralists. However, the European ranchers were incapable of livestock maintenance to the same extent of the Somali pastoralists. The colonial state constantly enforced contradictory schemes and policies to appease the European settlers and to maximize livestock and agricultural production in the NFD. These contradictions created a situation in which the Somali pastoralists at once lost their livelihood—livestock—and very few were converted into contract laborers to build infrastructure for European ranchers. The pastoralists were not integrated into the colonial economy through the process of continued “expropriation” that Marx describes in “primitive accumulation,” as they were left with nothing to expropriate. Much of their livestock was destroyed to favor the miniscule European-­ owned livestock.13 This process of destruction was a consequence of isolation and confinement. The pastoralists were not permitted to move outside their tribal grazing areas into European farms and pasturelands even as laborers for fear of the spread of diseases to European-owned livestock. Neither could they

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move past the Somali line14 to work in urban areas as laborers or plantation workers. Hence, while they were alienated from their means of production, they were not converted into a laboring class except for menial unsuccessful tasks of infrastructure development. The centrality of pastoralism to African history provides a space of contention both politically and economically in a capitalist world. A remnant of a nonindustrial past, tied to the land and mobile across state boundaries, the peasant threatens the creation of a strict laborer alienated from their means of production, free to move for work but yet imprisoned by state boundaries and control. Yet, the peasant is the only potential source of labor that the colonialist is met with at the site of exploitation. Alienating the peasant from land and livestock created for the colonies labor reserves to supply cheap labor and kill off the competition to European-owned plantations and livestock.15 I find Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s work on Peasants and Capital useful in thinking of peasants not in essentialist ahistorical terms as a single unit affected in the same way by capitalist relations of production but rather as a social group that is defined in specific ways under capitalist social relations of production. The uneven advancement of capital and the contradictions inherent to capital as a set of social relations of production, constantly in flux and unresolved, create a space in which the peasant exists in myriad ways even if transformed under capitalism.16 While the Somali pastoralist was permitted to keep livestock and have access to grazing land, the process of alienation involved relocation and confinement of the Somalis to specific areas. Their inability to move in search of pastures and quarantine and immunization killed off much of the Somali-­ owned livestock. As a senior British official of the Native Affairs department, John Ainsworth stated, to the British, pastoralism represented a barrier to civilization that, if imperial rule in East Africa were to justify itself on moral grounds, had to be breached.17 The NFD, colonized as a separate administrative unit from the rest of Kenya, was clearly demarcated by the Somali line which the Somali pastoralists could not cross. Unable to access sites where “work” was available and unable to survive on their depleting livestock, the pastoralists were left without work and any means of survival, slowly coming to depend on pre-colonial associations of dependency, such as the Sheegad18 systems and reliance on Somali traders in Nairobi and Mombasa. I propose the relations of dependency between the well-off Somali traders and the pastoralists were a product of merchant capital and part of the larger process into the integration of valorization.19 The Somali pastoralists were not the only producers of livestock in Kenya. There existed a European settler economy based on large ranches. The Somali-­ owned livestock posed a threat to the European-owned livestock. Between 1904 and 1918, pedigree bulls were imported from England. The sustainability of this industry however proved short-lived, as the European cattle were not immune to the livestock diseases in the region. To resolve this issue attempts were made by European livestock owners with the support of the British colonial state to cross their cattle with the locally bred cattle, hence selecting and restricting interaction among livestock. Despite this selected cross-breeding,

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they were unable to completely control their cattle coming into contact with “unwanted” African cattle, which they believed was causing the spread of diseases.20 The British took various steps to ensure that the movement of the local cattle was limited primarily by imposing arbitrary quarantine measures and by heavily restricting the mobility of pastoralists. In 1912, the Cattle Disease Ordinance was enacted which prohibited the free movement of African-owned cattle into European-settled areas by fencing off European lands. The British administration categorized pastoralism in Kenya as of two types: indigenous and subsistence oriented or imported and commercially oriented. For instance, the Somali-owned livestock was supplied and consumed in Mombasa and transported via camels. Profits from the supply of mutton relied on its consumption locally in Mombasa. The British called this mutton “second grade” mutton consumed by lower income groups of Asians and Arabs and those Africans who can afford it and driven on hoof from the Northern Frontier District. Ultimately the mode of valuation, as Richard Waller has argued, was based on the market value of the cattle and the settler-owned animals presented a higher initial investment.21 Within this market logic, the input of higher capital warranted higher market prices for European-owned cattle. The African-owned livestock were accorded poor grades and were purchased at very low prices relative to the market rate by the African Livestock Marketing Organization. The European-owned livestock were considered of a higher grade and bought at market prices. The livestock was then requisitioned from the North and their price set in Mombasa.22 The separation of the European-owned livestock and the Somali-owned livestock created, in the earlier colonial period, a mode for the effective management of the Somali pastoralists in terms of controlling their mobility and pushing them to the margins of livestock production. This was as much an economic response to the needs of the European ranchers as it was a political gesture toward controlling and pacifying the Somali pastoralists. The NFD was created as an administrative region and demarcated for colonial enterprise in 1901. However, it was not until 1912 that the British first occupied the region, evacuating soon after in 1916. The Somali resisted the initial advance of the British by attacking Lieutenant Elliot Constabulary and killing 80 of his men in 1916. Prior to this rebellion there were several others by Somali pastoralists such as the Ogaden revolt in 1898 and 1901. Ogaden pastoralists controlled much of Kismayo (a port city) and Afmadu in Southern Somalia. Historically both Kismayo and Afmadu were crucial for the caravan trade and the Indian Ocean trade; Kismayo as a port city was a center for the exchange of goods and Afmadu, a fertile area in the inter-riverine region, was essential for traders looking for settlements and replenishment on their travels. The Ogaden gained this power with the rise of the Ifat sultanate in the thirteenth century, which was later succeeded by the Adal Sultanate in the sixteenth century. The rise of these sultanates allowed Ogaden families  to migrate to the southern and coastal regions.23 The pastoralists controlled the movement of traders in and out of Kismayo and maintained a strong authority over the caravan trading routes inland. By 1898 the Adal sultanate had collapsed as Ethiopia’s Menelik II conquered the region of Ogaden, opening a path to eventual colonization. This

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weakened the Ogaden pastoralist stronghold in Kismayo and Afmadu as British troops invaded to establish control. The inhabitants of the  Ogaden region revolted against both the British and the Ethiopians and moved south to join the Ogaden settled in the NFD.24 The experience of these uprisings and an inability to control the movements of Somalis across the colonial borders led the colonial administration to focus on “pacifying” the Somali pastoralists by controlling their movement within the NFD and limiting them to the borders of the NFD. They also sought to weaken the influence of groups such as the Ajuraan and Ogaden (the dominant groups in the NFD) who had previously held authority in the regions as leaders of sultanates.25 The Somali pastoral communities of the NFD posed a problem for the British administration along the lines of effective state penetration because of the lack of spatially defined living spaces. The Somali exemption Ordinance of 1919, the Hut and Poll Ordinance of 1910 and the imposition of the stock traders license in the 1918 Ordinance locked Somali pastoralists within the NFD and separated them administratively from their Somali counterparts in the rest of Kenya. The Somali exemption Ordinance of 1919 in addition to the Outlying District Ordinance of 1902 curtailed the movement of “native” Somali pastoralists outside the NFD. They were prohibited to cross the “Somali line” separating the NFD from the rest of Kenya. Additionally, grazing grounds were separated according to ethnicity, with lines being drawn between the major ethnicities such as the Ajuraan line, the Dagodia line and the Boran line.26 The Outlying District Ordinance of 1902 provided the legal basis for the mobility and administration of the Somali pastoralists of Kenya. The Ordinance restricted movement in the NFD unless the individual had made prior arrangements with the administration through acquisition of a license or in exceptional cases to be determined by the colonial officers. No person was permitted, according to the 1902 Ordinance, to enter a closed district unless they were a native of the district, a public officer or in possession of a license.27 The Hut and Poll Tax Ordinance of 1910 and the Stock Traders Licenses of 1918, in addition to formalizing the relationship of the Somali pastoralist to the state and reordering their movements and locale, distinguished “native” Somalis from “Alien” Somalis. The native Somalis, like all other groups categorized as “native” in Kenya, were required to pay 10 shillings in hut tax. However, for a brief period (as shall be discussed in the next section) Isaaq and Harti, both Somali trading communities outside the NFD, were able through agitation to acquire a non-native status and paid 20 shillings.28 In 1918 the Stock Traders License Ordinance made licenses available for purchase at ₹500. Many Somali pastoralists were unable to afford these licenses which inhibited their ability to trade cattle even within the NFD.29 By the mid-1930s, perceptions of the Somali pastoralists were changing since it was becoming clear that livestock production had dropped severely in the NFD and the remaining Somali-owned livestock were “dead capital,” to use De Soto’s term ironically.30 The Somali pastoralists in many instances refused to sell their livestock at very low market prices. Furthermore, the European settlers pushed for further barriers against the mobility of Somali-­ owned cattle and Somali pastoralists to suppress competition. The colonial

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administrators in turn started to voice criticism against the practices of the European ranchers but continued to confine Somali pastoralists. This contradiction created a severe impoverishment of the Somali pastoralists. They were unable to maintain their livestock and had to succumb to various development and corrective schemes to counter the effects of environmental degradation by the European ranchers. The 1934 Special District Ordinance further curbed clan movements. Tribal grazing grounds were reinforced, through punishment, confining Somali pastoralists along clan lines to specific areas. Any movement of clans across their confined area was considered a trespassing offense liable to punishment in the form of fines or imprisonment. This Ordinance however was not enforced strictly in the case of “squatters.”31 Little has been said about the role of squatters in maintaining European farms in the NFD. The “squatters”—as they were termed by the colonial administration—were former pastoralists who could no longer maintain their traditional livelihood under the restrictions imposed by the colonial state. Squatters were defined as individuals who occupied vacant farms in  European settler areas. Attempts were made to evacuate them when they posed a threat to the security of the area, but often the squatters were not punished, despite having “trespassed” the clan lines, since they were used as cheap labor in maintaining grazing areas. On the other hand, Somali-owned livestock were used as the foundation stock for the European-owned livestock. Often remuneration and the administration of squatters lay outside the responsibilities of the colonial officers insofar as they served the economic purpose of the European livestock owners as reserve labor.32 In order to ensure that the squatters remained within the jurisdiction of the colonial administration (despite living outside their grazing areas), the 1924 Crop Production and the Livestock Ordinance33 extended the policy to squatters. The Ordinance limited the number of cattle the squatters could own alleging that their livestock was affecting the grazing lands and the European-­ owned livestock. At the same time, the Ordinance permitted the squatters to reside in European settlements as free labor with little to no livestock of their own. In 1943 two reports were released by the Agricultural officer D.C. Edwards and the Kenya Water Board. The two reports had a common concern: the rate of livestock production had fallen in the NFD particularly, and there was severe degradation of the pasturelands in terms of vegetation, soil and water sources. The two reports, written at the same time, situated the problem within two separate groups. The Agricultural officers saw the natives as the primary cause for the degradation, while the Kenya Water Board placed blame on the European settlers and their farming practices. However, the conclusions to these reports were identical. They both recommended the creation of water sources in the form of boreholes and watering wells in dry areas to be controlled by natives in their reserves. In 1943, D.C.  Edwards reported that livestock during the war years was sufficient but relatively lower than previous years given the needs of the military (note that part of the war was fought on NFD soil). He reported this was

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in part due to extensive deterioration, mainly near permanent water sources and particularly the Uaso Nyiro River. The Uaso Nyiro River was crucial in terms of grazing and irrigation as it flows from Mount Kenya through the NFD to Somalia, where it joins the Juba River. D.C. Edwards wrote, “These people [Somalis] are in the habit of lopping and bending over the branches of trees to bring the leafage within the reach of small livestock, when overgrazing has produced a scarcity of ground vegetation.” Edwards concluded that the lack of vegetation due to overgrazing had created a problem in water resources effecting rainfall and drying up streams and rivers. He proposed there should be an increase and better distribution of water supplies, control of migration and limiting Somali-owned livestock. The water sources that would be built to “improve the welfare of Africans”34 were to be administered by “tribal groups” to further confine them to their grazing land with their own boreholes and dams. No mention was made in this report of the regulations already pertaining to and quarantine of the Somali-owned livestock and the role of European settlers in the degradation of the grazing lands and water sources. At the same time, in 1943 the Kenya Water Board conducted a study titled the “Uaso Nyiro River Controversy.” This study noted that the Uaso Nyiro River dry season flow had considerably receded in the last 26  years (from 1918). The study concluded the problem was in large part due to the development of small farms and crop production by European settlers on land that was designated for grazing. The European settlers together with the squatters had caused the river to dry up sooner in the dry seasons due to the diversion of considerable amounts of water for irrigation to be used on soil that was not appropriate for crop production. Grazing had made the soil porous; hence, large amounts of water were needed for irrigation. The European settlers refused to engage with this study and refused to change their irrigation systems. The study then concluded, similar to D.C. Edwards’, boreholes and dams should be built in native reserves and the natives should be confined to very limited grazing areas with limited livestock.35 In 1946 the Colonial Development Commission approved expenditure of £483,700 over ten years for the implementation of the Dixey Scheme. Somali labor was used to build wells and dams in various parts of the region. Primarily as a result of absence of oversight by colonial administrators, many of the wells and dams were unsuccessful and did not serve their intended purpose.36 The initial plan was to provide for 200 boreholes and a large number of tanks, dams and wells throughout the NFD. By 1950, only nine boreholes were built, none of which functioned effectively. As a result, the Scheme was contracted out to a private company, Humphries and Sons, who continued to use Somali labor to build the wells. The Scheme largely depended on Somali pastoralists to both take care of the wells and build them with very little compensation. The Somalis responded by finding alternative means to sustain the little livestock they had or attach themselves to other groups to escape the conditions in the NFD. With little opportunity for trading and grazing, Somali pastoralists began to organize along different lines, politically and socially.37

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Despite the restrictions imposed on the mobility of the Somali pastoralists by the British administrations, there were marginal attempts by Somalis and other groups in the region to circumvent the mobility restrictions. In times of crisis, particularly during droughts and war, Somali nomadic groups would form both inter-clan and inter-ethnic patron-client relationships for purposes of survival. These relationships formed what was called Sheegad. A section, or an entire clan, would attach itself to another clan, traveling together and forming settlements together. The basis of the relationship was one of mutual reciprocity, where the attached clan would benefit from the resources of the host community and the latter would gain greater manpower in the event of a conflict. For instance, the initial southward migration of the Ajuraan was facilitated through the relationship they formed with the Boran. This relationship was important for the Boran in creating a defense against southward Ethiopian expansion and for the Ajuraan in navigating new lands. The creation of tribal reserves in the early colonial period made such attachments difficult to maintain and rigidly defined clan affiliations that did not exist in such forms in the pre-colonial period. In the 1930s there were reports by British colonial officers of the threat of mobility of Somali clans utilizing the Sheegad tradition.38 It was very common during the colonial period for a Somali pastoralist group to declare itself Boran through Sheegad in order to cross the “Somali line” with their cattle. The Sheegad tradition was a pre-colonial sociocultural institution that was utilized under colonialism to offer relief to communities that had become destitute. For the British, however, the reappearance of the pre-colonial tradition posed a threat to their administration. The British perceived this institution with suspicion as it formed larger mobile communities posing a threat to European livestock owners and inter-ethnic relations. It made the administrative restrictions on mobility far more difficult to maintain and regulate given that many of the clans who created patron-client relations through this institution formed intimate relationships with the host community. They established cultural and economic affiliations that made clear ethnic and clan separations difficult to articulate. For instance, the Gare and Ajuraan are both genealogically Somali clans, yet some of the sub-clans of both groups adopted Oromo as their mother tongue rather than Somali39 because the Ajuraan had incorporated some Oromo clans as clients in the pre-colonial period during the time of the Adal Sultanate.40 Sheegad-based relationships were not only utilized to meet the difficulties of war and draught, it was operational in maintaining patron-client relations to circumvent colonial restrictions. Furthermore, historical attachments through Sheegad were just as easily broken when deemed less important. For instance, after the colonial regime favored certain clans over others such as Isaaq and Harti groups as traders with freedom to move within Kenya, a reality that escaped the fluidity of pre-colonial clan affiliations would be enforced. Members of Isaaq and Harti renounced their Sheegad-based status after they found favor with the British administration and became affluent trading groups.41

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Historically, a weaker clan associated itself with a stronger clan for protection. Under colonialism, Sheegad relationships were created for mobility and social interaction. Scheele writes that some groups maintained their Sheegad simply to avoid isolation, such as some Isaaq groups in Isiolo. These pre-colonial patron-client relationships were resurrected in a moment of crisis created by the colonial condition to survive as pastoralists and to leave the NFD for trade. While the Somali pastoralist had to forge his/her own path into migrant labor, as they were alienated from their means of production, they did so in some instances through networks of dependency from the pre-colonial era.42 The semi-proletarianization of the Somali pastoralists by the policies of the colonial administration and their partial alienation from their land and livestock led them to reconstitute pre-colonial relations of dependency with other Somali and non-Somali groups in the region. Using the guise of the spread of cattle disease, and as a response to strategies of mobility unregulated by the state by the Somali pastoralists, quarantine measures were strictly enforced in 1950 to separate Somali-owned livestock from the “white highlands.” The colonial administrators claimed that the Somali-­ owned livestock were infected by diseases such as pleura pneumonia endemic. However this endemic did not exist outside Marsabit and Ethiopia. Yet, the entire district was put under quarantine.43 The pastoralists did not have access to any water sources as they were forcefully moved out of their reserves and concentrated in smaller designated areas called “households.” Neither did they have access to the forest reserves, which had been “protected” against environmental degradation. In 1956, a fee for grazing and access to the watering holes (built by the Somalis and part of the grazing schemes) was introduced for Isiolo district households. Additionally, the inhabitants of Isiolo were required to brand their cattle to ensure they did not move out of the designated households. The United Somalia Association petitioned the chief secretary about the household grazing scheme, stating that since the government had settled the Somalis in the households against their will, it was wrong to force them to pay fees for the grazing schemes and to control the movement of their livestock. The response from the chief secretary’s office was that the information received by the Somali association was inaccurate and they were simply using the petition as grounds for political agitation. Welfare of the Africans and restriction of political activity in the NFD often went hand in hand. The schemes meant to improve the livelihoods of Somali pastoralists but instead further restricted their immobility, and by the 1950s they were used to punish a deepening solidarity between pastoral groups and the beginnings of nationalist sentiments. During the period of the 1940s and 1950s, as grazing and water schemes failed and colonial restrictions became tighter, the contradictions between the colonial enterprise and the plight of the native became greater. Nationalist movements emerged in this context. In the NFD these movements from the onset took on a political rhetoric centered on the discourse of a Greater Somalia. In the way that the NFD Somali pastoralists engaged with the nationalist movements—sporadically in response to attacks from the colonial

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government—I argue their interest in the nationalist discourse was of economic interest rather than a desire to unite with the rest of the Somali-inhabited regions in the Horn (which at this time were under Italian, French, British and Ethiopian rule). The early manifestations of these movements came in the form of the Somali Youth League (SYL). The SYL became active in Mogadishu in 1946 and spread to the NFD and Nairobi in 1947. Initially, the leadership of the SYL came primarily out of Harti traders and clerks. They engaged in weekly meetings in urban centers and philanthropic activities. Within a very short period they were able to get the support of the Somali pastoralists, in the NFD.44 Two aspects of the SYL were particularly attractive to the Somali pastoralists: a disregard for colonial boundaries and the opposition to government grazing control schemes. Many SYL members were in Mandera district freely traveling between Mandera and Wajir, organizing Somalis against clannism and for a Greater Somalia which would uphold the predominantly nomadic way of life of Somali pastoralists.45 The British became increasingly wary of the activities of the SYL. In a Handing Over Report in 1955, Kennaway warned that the “SYL should be kept out of the NFD to avoid agitation.”46 Initially, the British viewed the SYL as a social club which the Harti, who were loyal to the colonial administration, controlled. As the SYL began to organize inside the NFD with pastoralist support, the colonial administration began to view it as a political organization planning attacks on the government and controlling customary practices.47 Severe measures were adopted by the British in the NFD to disrupt the influence of the SYL. Given their closeness to the British (an alliance they formed against Italian rule in Southern Somalia) and the role of Somali traders the demands and grievances of the Somali pastoralists of the NFD quickly took a backseat.

Somali Traders in Nairobi and Mombasa Somali traders in Nairobi and Mombasa are worth mentioning as they agitated for a different status from the “native” Somalis even as the Crown viewed them as natives. They shared a similar history to the pastoralists in terms of migration patterns. This section looks at the contradiction between the way Somali traders (largely defined along clan lines of the Isaaq and Harti under the British administration) were treated within Kenya and the directions given from the Colonial Office in Britain. Both Turton and Dalleo argue that the Isaaq and Harti, given their economic activities and their close relationship to the British, held special status, straddling between native and non-native. Much of their material is based on archival documents that were available from the colonial administrators in Kenya. It may be the case that earlier on the Isaaq and Harti were treated differently from the “native” Somalis and treated as “Alien” Somalis with special characteristics and lineages connecting them to Asian and Arab origin. By 1938, however, this perception changed, primarily because they no longer played a significant role in the declining livestock caravan trade that went through Somalia and Aden.

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While the British undercut the pre-colonial caravan trade routes by delinking them from the Indian Ocean long-distance trade, they maintained the same routes to transport livestock to Aden and game produce and trophies in the form of ivory, skin hides and hippopotamus teeth. These trade routes were not actively controlled by the British but remained active for the transportation of goods. In Kenya the Somali Harti and Isaaq were given trading licenses to travel with goods along these routes for sale and export at the seaports. Historically, the Harti allied with British troops in Kismayo in 1898 to escape destruction by the Ethiopian invasion and to avoid the domination by the Ogaden sultanate. They came to Kenya as colonial troops. They were close allies of the British even during the uprising of Mohamed Abdille Hassan of Northern Somalia, who led the first anti-colonial resistance against the British in 1897.48 The Harti were given trading licenses by the British and came to dominate the middlemen role in the ivory trade. The Harti relied heavily on the Bon Marehan, the only clan in the NFD who engaged in poaching. By 1918 it became increasingly difficult for traders to maintain a profitable ivory trade within Kenya and they moved instead to coastal trading at Kismayo, Mombasa and Lamu. The formation of a trading class defined by a particular “clan” was a colonial project, the once fluid social organization along this region would become confined to clan-a colonial construct that would form realities of its own on the ground. In this case in order to trade, individuals or group of people would have to claim a relationship to being Harti or Isaaq in order to gain trading licenses from the British. Consequently, the codification of imposed clan rigidities associated with economic activity produced economic realities of their own superficially divided along discriminatory lines. Members of Isaaq also arrived in Kenya during the colonial period in the late nineteenth century as laborers on the Suez Canal in 1869 and as guides for explorers in their expeditions. When they came to Kenya they took the role of traders and shopkeepers. They were given trading licenses and for a brief time allowed to pay non-native taxes in 1919 with the Somali Exemption Ordinance that excluded certain Somalis from the definition of natives. This exclusion depended on the Somali proving he/she could demonstrate a level of education to speak Arabic or English and could trace a lineage to Asia or Arabia. Between 1839 and 1937, Aden, where many Isaaq resided, was annexed to British India and its inhabitants were considered to be Asian. Consequently, Isaaq traders constructed their origin as Asiatic with descent from the Sharifs of Mecca.49 They used this political category of race to be treated as Asian and gain access to resources and social services. In 1919 they temporarily received non-native status under the Somali Exemption Ordinance. Obtaining this status, however, did not mean they were consistently treated as non-native. They were treated as native or non-native depending on their salary under the Registration of Domestic Servants Ordinance.50 The Isaaq traders petitioned to have “Isaaq” appear on their permits, insisting that they were not Somali and claiming complete loyalty to the very “compassionate and benign British government.”51 The Isaaq were willing and in fact agitated to pay Asiatic poll taxes

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so as to lay claim to Asiatic laws, to which the British responded with little enthusiasm, calling the Isaaq “politically minded, volatile and unstable and are usually unwilling to work … they have made to contribution to the war … [they are] parasites of the present time in Kenya.”52 This claim to Asiatic status was a claim to resources and in fact a claim to the state and state protection. The Isaaq did not want to be treated as natives, but rather as subjects of the state in which they could reap economic benefit. This relationship, one that could well have contributed to the general economy of the colonial state, was perceived with hostility by the British as it was not simply a claim to economic resources but to racial mobility vis-à-vis in order to secure economic status. According to a PC in the NFD, the Isaaq believed, “that Asiatic status would confer, amongst other things, immunity from arrest by African police constables, special accommodation in hospitals and prisons, more favorable treatment in the law courts and eventually the sharing with the Indians of lands in the ‘White highland.’”53 Similarly, Harti traders petitioned the colonial government on several occasions to be considered of Arab origin, claiming descent from the Yemeni groups who had first come to Northern Somalia during the eighth and ninth centuries.54 They claimed they were already paying the 30 shillings poll tax conferred to Asians and Arabs and thus requested Arab status and better education facilities for their children in English. Several petitions were made internally to the colonial administrators, particularly after 1921, when they received no benefits from paying non-native taxes. The 1921 Ordinance stipulated that even if granted exemption under the Somali Exemption Ordinance of 1919, the same laws applied to all Somalis. The colonial administrators did not directly deal with the issue of the Harti as Arabs or the Isaaq as Asians, but it did give them preferential treatment in terms of dispensing grazing and trading licenses and permitting mobility across colonial borders. This cross-border mobility of the Isaaq and Harti facilitated trading routes beneficial to the administration and the settlers (movement of livestock and goods for export and consumption along the East African coast). However, once livestock production was no longer in surplus, particularly from the NFD, and was used to meet the war needs, the role of traders began to diminish. By the late 1930s many Isaaq and Harti traders were denied trading licenses and there were several correspondences among the DCs to limit “Alien Somalis” from trading and accumulating wealth in the townships.55 The traders responded in two ways. First, they petitioned the colonial office directly in 1930. They each sent a petition to the colonial office claiming Arab and Asiatic status. The petitions were similar in nature. They claimed to show proof of payment of non-native taxes and of ethnic difference from the native Somali population. They also made reference to their loyalties to the British government from the early nineteenth century against the uprising of Mohamed Abdille Hassan. The Secretary of State of Colonies dismissed these petitions. He wrote, “I am by no means prepared to admit the claim of the Somalis that they have been instrumental in enlightening and encouraging the native of the colony in the methods of

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civilizing trading. On the contrary their disregard of the law, especially where it relates to trespasser, animal quarantine, and in many cases their methods of trading have been anything but a good example.” He continues, “The days of them as carrying on trade beneficial to Britain are long gone.”56 The Colonial Office emphasized the interchangeability of the Somali clans, considering them to be native without “characteristics” that would categorize them otherwise. In the same correspondence it was mentioned, despite several correspondences advising the contrary, the Kenyan colonial administration continued to engage the Harti and Isaaq favorably and the Colonial Office “disapproved” of this method of engagement with the Somali groups. The discrepancy between the directions from the Colonial Office and the actual administration of the colonies created a contradiction in rule in which there was a differentiation of the native along class lines. Favored treatment of the Isaaq and Harti traders created an opportunity for them to engage in a process of accumulation as petty traders, which did not go very far under colonial subjugation but allowed for the emergence of relations of exploitation between Somali groups post-­ independence. These relationships began to appear during the nationalist movements of the 1940s and 1950s. The Isaaq and Harti as traders did not exist as such in the pre-colonial (more specifically in the pre-WW1 period) and indeed not every member identifying as Isaaq or Harti was necessarily a trader, however colonial impositions and assumptions would produce realities of their own on the ground as the machinations of power trickled through societies under colonial rule. Producing logics of power based on imposed “identities”. Second, Isaaq and Harti traders responded to their diminishing role as traders in Kenya by joining the Somali nationalist movements in leadership positions as literate and business elite, setting the nationalist agenda for the Somalis of the NFD. They used their position in the SYL as a bargaining chip with the British, agitating for better conditions of Somalis yet maintaining alliances with the British colonial administration. This fit in well with the agenda of the SYL that was primarily anti-Italian colonization with its center in Mogadishu. For the Somali pastoralists in the NFD, the SYL was not simply a social front in which to make their grievances apparent to the British. Neither was it an attempt to petition the British to confer a special status on them. Rather, the SYL acted as an organizing tool to circumvent and reject colonial policy and restrictions altogether. The pastoralists would do this through all means available to them: either through traditional relations of dependency or through nationalist organizing against the state—both through political parties and through mass organizing within the NFD.  The  traders, on the other hand, used the SYL as a platform to deliver their petition for preferential treatment, often going against the interests of the Somali pastoralists. The early signs of the SYL as a nationalist movement and later as a movement agitating for secession from the postcolonial Kenyan state bore within it the differentiated class interests of Somali traders and pastoralists, often concealed by the nationalist agenda.

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While this chapter has made an attempt to move away from the dominant discourse in Somali studies of clan organizations as inherent to the Somali way of being, the colonial administration used superficial lines of difference to organize the Somali population in Kenya. The Isaaq and Harti, for instance, who had historically been both pastoralists and traders, were categorized as non-­ natives, offering them marginal privileges in relation to the Somali pastoralists locked in the NFD. I argue despite these distinctions, the inherent contradictions of capital, particularly on the question of the semi-proletarianization of the pastoralists, created part peasants and part workers relying on both the land and wage work. The case of the NFD was particularly egregious for the Somali pastoralists since, unable to move across the NFD line, they could no longer rely on their land to graze livestock and neither could they engage in trade or consistent labor. This crisis created a space in which relations of dependency were resurrected in the form of pre-colonial patron-client relationships. However, this created economic differentiation among the Somalis outside state structures which would come to define the inherent interests subsumed by the unified cry for secession.

Notes 1. This is not to posit that nation states are not subject to multiple crises, but secessionism questions the very sanctity of the nation-state as a unified entity bounded by territory with a general conformity amongst its subjects as a single ­political unit. 2. Collin Sumner, ed. Crime Justice and Underdevelopment. (London: Heinemann, 1982) 39–40. 3. Issa Shivji “Trajectories of Accumulation: How Neoliberal Primitive Accumulation is Planting the Seeds of Suicide” New Agenda, 68 (2017): 36–38. Primitive accumulation relies on extraction without an equivalent exchange value and expanded reproduction (unlike simple reproduction which simply creates a marginal surplus, e.g. merchant capital) uses part of the surplus to reinvest in capital. 4. John Drysdale, The Somali Dispute (New York: Frederick A.  Praeger, 1964); David Laitin and Said Samatar, Somalia: Nation in Search of a State. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1987). Northern Somalia was colonized by the British and it was a central source of livestock production for the British garrisons in Aden, much literature presumes the NFD was similarly a hub for livestock production linked to the needs of the British in Aden. 5. E.R.  Turton, “Somali Resistance to Colonial Rule and the Development of Somali Political Activity in Kenya 1893–1960.” The Journal of African History, 13.1, (1972) 119–143; I.M. Lewis, A Pastoral Democracy: A Study of Pastoralism and Politics among the Northern Somali of the Horn of Africa, (London: Oxford University Press, 1961); Peter Dalleo, “Trade and Pastoralism. Economic Factors in the History of the Somali Northeastern Kenya, 1892–1948” Ph.D. diss., Syracuse University, 1975; Gunther Schlee and Abdullahi Shongolo, Pastoralism and Politics in Northern Kenya and Southern Ethiopia, (London: James Currey, 2013); Bernhard Helander, The Slaughtered Camel: Coping with Fictitious

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Descent among the Hubeer of Southern Somalia, (Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 2003). 6. Turton, “Somali Resistance to Colonial Rule and the Development of Somali Political Activity in Kenya 1893–1960.”; Lewis, A Pastoral Democracy; Hannah Alice Whittaker, “The Socioeconomic Dynamics of the Shift Conflict in Kenya,” The Journal of African History, 53. 3 (2012), 391–408. 7. Archie Mafeje, “The Ideology of ‘Tribalism’” The Journal of Modern African History, 9.2, (1971), 261. 8. A focus on the Isaaq and Harti is to emphasize the role they came to play as traders and merchants in the long-distance trade rather than their clan affiliations. 9. I.M. Lewis, who has written extensively on Somalia and the clan lineage system, describes Somali lineage in essentialist terms with little consideration to the social relations of production between the different groups. He describes the social and political organization of the traditional pastoral Somali societies as organized according to segmentary units based on lineage groups. Based on patrilineal descent origin he groups the “Somali nation” into five large “clan families”: the pastoral Darood, Isaaq, Dir and Hawiya clan families and the agricultural Digil-­Rahanwayn. The major groups that live in the NFD belong to the Darood and the Hawiya. Each clan family is further subdivided into sub-clan units and further each sub-clan unit is divided into the Diya-paying groups. Diya (blood money) refers to the obligation of close kin to share responsibility for crimes committed by or against one of their own. The Diya-paying group generally lived together and protected their livestock and grazing areas against other groups. Both land and large livestock such as cattle and camel were communally owned, by extended families within the Diya-paying groups. The alliance formed by different sub-­ clans through the Diya-paying group was consolidated by means of contract (heer)—a set of binding customs and traditions that governed the Somali people in the pre-colonial world. Lewis ends his discussion of pre-colonial social organization of the Somali people with the conclusion that, socially, the Somalis were governed by two-principles clan (tol) and social contract or custom (heer). The Diya-paying groups sometimes formed alliances across sub-clan lines to communally protect and maintain livestock and grazing grounds. He has little discussion on the relationship between pastoralists, agriculturalists and traders and relationships of dependency that formed in times of crisis. Furthermore, Lewis pays little attention to the larger context wherein Somali groups were encountering the East African coast and large parts of the Indian Ocean world through trading networks and intellectual networks of Islam in an age of city-state formation and long-distance trading. Tol and Heer did not always determine these social relations. For more on Somali pastoral lineage organization, see Lewis, I.M., “Historical Aspects of Genealogies in Northern Somali Structure,” Journal of African History, 3, 1962, 32–40; Hussein Adam “From Tyranny to Anarchy: The Somali Experience” (Eritrea: The Red Sea Press, 2008), 216–217; “Dia: Blood Money The Impact on East Africa of the Galla and the Somali” PC NFD 4/1/1 Kenya National Archive (KNA); Lewis, “Historical Aspects of Genealogies in Northern Somali structure”; Laitin and Samatar, Somalia: Nation in Search of State. 10. Abdul Sheriff, Dhow Cultures of the Indian Ocean: Cosmopolitanism, Commerce and Islam (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010); R.J.  Barendse, The Indian Ocean World of the Seventeenth Century (New York: Routledge, 2015).

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11. Much focus is maintained on the late nineteenth-century migration of the Isaaq to the south as military aid and loyal to British explorers facilitating the subsequent argument that the Isaaq were an isolated clan with special interests with little attention paid to the earlier Isaaq migrations who maintained pastoralism as a means of livelihood. For work on Somali city-state formation, refer to Laitin and Samatar (1987); Virginia Luling, Somali Sultanate: The Geledi City-­State over 150 years. (London: Haan, 2002); Lee Cassanelli, The Shaping of Somali Society: Reconstructing the History of a Pastoral People, 1600–1900, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982). 12. These goods were transported via camel to the Indian Ocean coast where they were either exchanged for beads, porcelain, cloth from China and India or where debt would be accumulated to finance further trading expeditions. The Somali middlemen on the coast (a position that would be taken up by specific ethnic groups only later during the colonial period—the Harti and Isaaq groups as they took on the role of shopkeepers) facilitated exchange with the traders on the coast, predominantly of Yemeni origin in Mogadishu and Shirazi and Indians to the south of the coast would travel with these goods and trade them along the Indian ocean world (see Laitin and Samatar, Somalia: Nation in Search of State, 16–18; Cassanelli, The Shaping of Somali Society). 13. Expropriation is liked to primitive accumulation in Marx—defined as seizing of surplus labor without appearance of equivalent exchange. Shivji (2017, 36); Karl Marx, “Part 8: Primitive Accumulation” in Capital: A critique of Political Economy, (New York: International Publishers 1967 (1867). 14. The border that divided the NFD from the rest of Kenya. 15. Henry Bernstein, “African Peasantries: A theoretical framework” Journal of Peasant Studies, 6.4 (1979), 421–43; Utsa Patnaik and Sam Moyo, The Agrarian Question in the Neoliberal Era, Primitive Accumulation and the Peasantry, Cape Town, Dakar and NY: Pambazuka Press, 2011); Eric Wolf, Peasants, (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1966). 16. Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Peasants and Capital: Dominica in the World Economy, (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988). 17. Ian R.G.  Spenser “Pastoralism and Colonial Policy in Kenya, 1895–1929. In Robert I. Rotberg (ed.) Imperialism, Colonialism and Hunger: East and Central Africa. (Canada: Lexington Books, 1983), 113. 18. This was a patron-client relation that predated the colonial period where economically and militarily weak groups attached themselves to stronger ones for their livelihood and safety. 19. Trouillot, Peasants and Capital, 11 (1988, 11). 20. Mohamed Farah, From Ethnic Response to Clan Identity: A Study of State Penetration among the Somali Nomadic Pastoral Society of Northeastern Kenya. (Uppsala: Academie Ubsaliensis, 1993) 114–116. 21. Richard Waller “‘Clean’ and ‘Dirty’: Cattle Disease and Control Policy in Colonial Kenya, 1900–40,” The Journal of African History 45.1 (2004), 47. On the eventual decline of prices of Somali owned cattle, see the petition made by Isaaq and Harti traders. Through their lament in the drop of prices, it is apparent that the Somali owned livestock by virtue of being marketed to ALMO did not receive the same prices as the European owned livestock. Provincial Commissioner Northern Province, “Petition from Isaaq and Harti Somalis”, 27/10/1950, DC ISO 3/6/26, KNA.

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22. Scheele and Shongolo, Pastoralism and Politics in Northern Kenya and Southern Ethiopia, 11; Farah, From Ethnic Response to Clan Identity, 47;  “Mombasa District Annual Report”, 1952, DC/MSA/1/6, KNA. 23. Cassanelli, Somalia: Nation in Search of State. 24. Turton, “Somali Resistance to Colonial Rule and the Development of Somali Political Activity in Kenya 1893–1960,” 123–124. 25. “Re-organization of the Northern Frontier Province 1925–30,” PC NFD 4/1/4, KNA. 26. Cap 104, Laws of Kenya. 27. The Republic of Kenya, Kenya Law Reports, The Outlying Districts Act, Cap 104, 1902 (repealed in 1997). National Council for Law Reporting, Kenya. 28. “Status of Nairobi Somalis 1930,” CO 533/402/6, TNA.  There were some Isaaq who resided in Isiolo in the NFD, who were considered “native,” despite the designation of “Aliens” of the Isaaq who lived outside the NFD as traders. The Isaaq in Isiolo had come to the NFD during the earlier migrations starting from the ninth century, unlike the Isaaq who migrated to Kenya in the nineteenth century with the British. 29. DC Marsabit to PC, Isiolo (letter), DC WAJ 5/2, 1948, KNA. 30. Hernando De Soto a Peruvian economist coined the patronizing term in the early 2000s to describe assets that cannot be easily succumbed to market factors. He considered these assets “dead capital” that needed to be identified, commoditized and formalized. I take liberty in using this term retrospectively. I disagree with DeSoto’s formulation as it proposes that all forms of livelihood can be commoditized to create a market value. In the case of the Somali pastoralists, livestock was a form of subsistence with a use value rather than a marketoriented commodity for exchange. 31. Annual Colonial Report, Report for 1924, No. 1282, Majesty’s Stationery Office, London. 32. Waller, “Clean and Dirty”, 52. 33. Annual Colonial Report, Report for 1924, No. 1282, Majesty’s Stationery Office, London. 34. Farah, From Ethnic Response to Clan Identity, 54. 35. Dixey, Kenya water problems, 1929, PC NFD 5/2/6, KNA. 36. Jonathan Hansen, “Development at the margins: Missionaries, The state and the transformation of Marsabit, Kenya in the Twentieth Century” Ph.D. diss., Vanderbilt University, 2015. 37. Northern Province Annual Report (Moyale district), PC/NFD/1/10/4, 1956, KNA; Northern Province Annual Report, PC/NFD/1/1/12, 1958–1960, KNA; Mandera Annual Report (Mandera District), C/NFD/1/3/2, 1950, KNA. 38. Wajir District, Northern Province Annual Report, PC/NFD/1/10/4, 1956, KNA; Gunther Schlee, Identities on the Move: Clanship and Pastoralism in Northern Kenya. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989). 39. Oromo and Somali are distinct languages but they are related as members of the Cushitic language spoken in the Horn. 40. Farah, From Ethnic Response to Clan Identity, 71. 41. Some Isaaq Harti had formed an attachment to the Rendille in the North when they were brought to Kenya as British aids.

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42. Lewis, “Pan-Africanism and Pan-Somalism,” The Journal of Modern African Studies 1, no. 2 (1963): 147–161; Dalleo, “Trade and Pastoralism”; and Helander, “The Slaughtered Camel” engage with Sheegad as a patron-client relationship, but they have little to say on the role it played and the changes it underwent as a social network during the colonial period. 43. Northern Province, handing over report, 1950, PC/NFD/2/1/3, Kenya National Achieves (KNA). 44. Turton, “Somali Resistance to Colonial Rule”, 135–136. 45. Northern Province Annual Report, Letter from Mr. John Cusack to Mr. N.F. Kennaway, 1953, PC/NFD/1/1/12, KNA; Turton, “Somali Resistance to Colonial Rule”. 46. Northern Province Annual Report, Letter from N.F. Kennaway to M.E.W. North, 1955, PC/NFD/1/1/12, KNA. 47. Turton, “Somali Resistance to Colonial Rule”. 48. E.R.  Turton, “The Isaq Somali Diaspora and Poll-Tax Agitation in Kenya, 1936–41,” African Affairs, 73.292, (1974) 328.; Peter Dalleo, “The Somali Role in Organized Poaching in Northeastern Kenya, c 1909–1939,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 12, 3 (1979): 472–82; Abdi Sheikh-Abdi, Divine Madness: Mohamed Abdulle Hassan (1856–1920), (London: Zed Books Ltd., 1993). 49. Letter from the Shariff Ishak community to Officer in Charge NFD, “Alien Somali Activities”, 1939, Isiolo, PC/NFD 4/7/2, KNA. 50. Turton, “The Isaq Somali Diaspora and Poll-Tax Agitation in Kenya, 1936–41”. 51. Letter from Turnbull, DC to Officer in Charge NFD, “Alien Somali Activities”, 1940,  Isiolo, PC/NFD 4/7/2, KNA; Ibid., Speech 1938 by “British Isaaq Community”, PC/NFD 4/7/2, KNA. 52. Letter from W.  Riggs, Director of Intelligence and Security, Nairobi. 1942, PC/NFD 4/7/2, KNA. 53. As quoted in Turton,  “The Isaq Somali Diaspora and Poll-Tax Agitation in Kenya, 1936–41”, 327. 54. “Status of Harod [Harti] Somalis in NFD” CO 533/447 TNA. 55. Alien Somali Activities, 1938–1943, PC/NFD/4/7/2, KNA; Letter from DC, Marsabit to DC, Wajir, 1948, PC/NFD 4/7/2 KNA; Letter from DC, Wajir to DC, Marasbit, 1948, PC/NFD 4/7/2, KNA. 56. CO 533/402/6, TNA.

References Adam, Hussein. 2008. From Tyranny to Anarchy: The Somali Experience. Trenton: The Red Sea Press. Barendse, R.J. 2015. The Indian Ocean World of the Seventeenth Century. New York: Routledge. Bernstein, Henry. 1979. African Peasantries: A Theoretical Framework. Journal of Peasant Studies 6 (4): 421–443. Cassanelli, Lee. 1982. The Shaping of Somali Society: Reconstructing the History of a Pastoral People, 1600–1900. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Dalleo, Peter. 1975. Trade and Pastoralism. Economic Factors I the History of the Somali Northeastern Kenya, 1892–1948. PhD diss., Syracuse University.

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———. 1979. The Somali Role in Organized Poaching in Northeastern Kenya, c 1909–1939. International Journal of African Historical Studies 12 (3): 472–482. Drysdale, John. 1964. The Somali Dispute. New York: Frederick A. Praeger. Farah, Mohamed. 1993. From Ethnic Response to Clan Identity: A Study of State Penetration Among the Somali Nomadic Pastoral Society of Northeastern Kenya. Uppsala: Academie Ubsaliensis. Hansen, Jonathan. 2015. Development at the Margins: Missionaries, the State and the Transformation of Marsabit, Kenya in the Twentieth Century. PhD diss., Vanderbilt University. Helander, Bernhard. 2003. The Slaughtered Camel: Coping with Fictitious Descent Among the Hubeer of Southern Somalia. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Laitin, David, and Said Samatar. 1987. Somalia: Nation in Search of a State. Boulder: Westview Press. Lewis, I.M. 1961. A Pastoral Democracy: A Study of Pastoralism and Politics Among the Northern Somali of the Horn of Africa. London: Oxford University Press. ———. 1963. Pan-Africanism and Pan-Somalism. The Journal of Modern African Studies 1 (2): 147–161. ———. 1962. Historical Aspects of Genealogies in Northern Somali Structure. Journal of African History 3: 32–40. Luling, Virginia. 2002. Somali Sultanate: The Geledi City-State Over 150 Years. London: Haan. Mafeje, Archie. 1971. The Ideology of ‘Tribalism’. The Journal of Modern African History 9 (2): 253–261. Marx, Karl. 1867. Part 8: Primitive Accumulation. In Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. New York: International Publishers 1967. Patnaik, Utsa, and Sam Moyo. 2011. The Agrarian Question in the Neoliberal Era, Primitive Accumulation and the Peasantry. Cape Town/Dakar: Pambazuka Press. Schlee, Gunther. 1989. Identities on the Move: Clanship and Pastoralism in Northern Kenya. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Schlee, Gunther, and Abdullahi Shongolo. 2013. Pastoralism and Politics in Northern Kenya and Southern Ethiopia. London: James Currey. Sheikh-Abdi, Abdi. 1993. Divine Madness: Mohamed Abdulle Hassan (1856–1920). London: Zed Books Ltd. Shivji, Issa. 2017. Trajectories of Accumulation: How Neoliberal Primitive Accumulation Is Planting the Seeds of Suicide. New Agenda 68: 36–38. Spenser, Ian R.G. 1983. Pastoralism and Colonial Policy in Kenya, 1895–1929. In Imperialism, Colonialism and Hunger: East and Central Africa, ed. Robert I. Rotberg. Lexington: Lexington Books. Sumner, Collin, ed. 1982. Crime Justice and Underdevelopment, 39–40. London: Heinemann. Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. 1988. Peasants and Capital: Dominica in the World Economy. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Turton, E.R. 1972. Somali Resistance to Colonial Rule and the Development of Somali Political Activity in Kenya 1893–1960. The Journal of African History 13 (1): 119–143. ———. 1974. The Isaq Somali Diaspora and Poll-Tax Agitation in Kenya, 1936–41. African Affairs 73 (292): 325–346. Waller, Richard. 2004. ‘Clean’ and ‘Dirty’: Cattle Disease and Control Policy in Colonial Kenya, 1900–40. The Journal of African History 45 (1): 45–80.

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Whittaker, Hannah Alice. 2012. The Socioeconomic Dynamics of the Shifta Conflict in Kenya. The Journal of African History 53 (3): 391–408. Wolf, Eric. 1966. Peasants. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.

Archive Material “Dia: Blood Money The Impact on East Africa of the Galla and the Somali” PC NFD 4/1/1 Kenya National Archive (KNA). “Re-organization of the Northern Frontier Province 1925–30” PC NFD 4/1/4 KNA. The Republic of Kenya, Kenya Law Reports, The Outlying Districts Act, Cap 104, 1902 (Repealed in 1997). National Council for Law Reporting, Kenya. Letter from DC Marsabit to PC, Isiolo, 1948, DC WAJ 5/2, KNA. Annual Colonial Report, Report for 1924, No. 1282, Majesty’s Stationery Office, London. Dixey, “Kenya water problems,” 1929, PC NFD 5/2/6, KNA Northern Province Annual Report (Moyale District), PC/NFD/1/10/4, 1956, KNA. Northern Province Annual Report, PC/NFD/1/1/12, 1958–1960, KNA. Mandera Annual Report (Mandera District), C/NFD/1/3/2, 1950, KNA. Wajir District, Northern Province Annual Report, PC/NFD/1/10/4, 1956, KNA. Northern Province, Handing Over Report, PC/NFD/2/1/3 1950, KNA. Northern Province Annual Report, Letter from Mr. John Cusack to Mr. N.F. Kennaway, PC/NFD/1/1/12, 1953, KNA. Northern Province Annual Report, Letter from N.F. Kennaway to M.E.W. North, PC/ NFD/1/1/12, 1955, KNA. Alien Somali Activities, Letter from the Shariff Ishak Community to Officer in Charge NFD, Isiolo, PC/NFD 4/7/2, 1939, KNA. Alien Somali Activities, Letter from Turnbull, DC to Officer in Charge NFD, Isiolo, PC/NFD 4/7/2, 1940, KNA. Speech 1938 by “British Isaaq Community” PC/NFD 4/7/2, KNA. Letter from W. Riggs, Director of Intelligence and Security, Nairobi. 1942, PC/NFD 4/7/2, KNA. “Status of Harod [Harti] Somalis in NFD” CO 533/447 TNA. “Status of Nairobi Somalis 1930,” CO 533/402/6, TNA Alien Somali Activities, PC/NFD/4/7/2, 1938–1943, KNA. ——. Letter from DC, Marsabit to DC, Wajir, 1948, PC/NFD 4/7/2 KNA. ——. Letter from DC, Wajir to DC, Marasbit, 1948, PC/NFD 4/7/2, KNA.

CHAPTER 20

The Political Economy of Globalization and Employment Returns to Youth in Uganda John Mary Kanyamurwa

Introduction Scholarly interest in understanding the capacity of the state to execute the responsibility for creating decent employment opportunities and ensuring satisfactory economic returns from globalization is not new in the field of political economy. This intellectual quest has been growing since the 1930s, when Keynes pioneered it with the intent to deal with the challenge of unemployment that faced many economies worldwide during the Great Economic Recession that occurred after World War I (Pettinger 2017). Different neoclassical economists and modern political economists have accordingly analysed state capacity in the context of diverse factors. The rationale for putting the focus on the state is simply explained by its centrality in production, distribution, service delivery, and exchange processes. Thus, the leading dynamics guiding these analyses comprise government policy, level of political stability, intra- and inter-state wars, and nature of macroeconomic management at different levels of production (Luo and Fan 2017, 14). Recent scholarship has, in addition, focused on stability of interest and exchange rates, immigration, the size and growth rate of national incomes, among others (Friman 2004, 103–105). Evidently, the contexts under which much attention has been paid scarcely include globalization and the potential employment returns to numerically strong work-ready groups such as the youth in Uganda. Neither does this focus analyse the youth perspective of the

J. M. Kanyamurwa (*) Kyambogo University, Kampala, Uganda e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 S. O. Oloruntoba, T. Falola (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of African Political Economy, Palgrave Handbooks in IPE, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38922-2_20

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employment opportunities created as a result of the globalization phenomenon, or the dynamics which undercut such returns to this social group. Over 70% of Africa’s population, and indeed that of Uganda, is below 30  years old. Of this proportion, the youth within the working age, who, according to International Labour Organization (ILO), are 16–30 years old, have oscillated around 30% for more than a decade (ILO 2017). Employment returns are perceived as nominal, and real wages earned from a job, the nature of jobs held, indicators for employment decency, its sustainability, the psychosocial satisfaction derived from such a job in form of fairness, and the morale that a jobholder feels as a result of the overall working conditions. The statistics on Uganda’s youth unemployment situation appear critical (Magelah and Ntambirweki-Karugonjo 2014, ii). Taken as a whole, the current statistical information shows that while 400,000 youths graduate from Uganda’s tertiary education institutions annually, only 9000 jobs are created in Uganda’s entire economy per year. The extent of the contradictions and dynamics of youth unemployment in Uganda is further studied in relation to the globalization phenomenon. Globalization is understood differently by a diversity of scholarship (see e.g. Mutalemwa 2015, 177; Shaka 2013; Held and McGrew 2007, chap. 2). A close examination of these scholars’ views suggests, however, that they all agree on several features. Firstly, most accounts appear to concur that this phenomenon occurs through processes and practices that tend to obliterate political, economic, cultural, social, time, and space limitations across the globe (Kanyamurwa 2016, 97–99). Secondly, globalization makes poor economies like Uganda’s, open to all external forces, including even those which may seriously undermine a country’s capacity to fulfil her obligations. In this category falls those state responsibilities concerned with creating gainful, sustainable, satisfactory, and decent employment opportunities for citizens, particularly the youth, who constitute a large percentage of the national working population.

Theoretical Framework The political economy perspective provides the guidance for examining globalization and employment returns to youth in Uganda. Political economy as an approach for scholarly analysis has often been broadly connected with issues of property ownership and control, the collective overall production conditions in society which influence the nature of the production context. The latter forces may be political, legal, social, economic, technological, and cultural as they nuance production outcomes, including those which may indicate employment returns from globalization (Leroux 2011, 23). A similar view about the political economy approach is widely shared in the analysis of production, control, and distribution of development resources (Gilder and Forbes 2012, 102–103). This account underscores the linkages between wealth creation structures, trade relations, and distribution of commercialized products, which have

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­ owerful interconnections with diverse industries in society. Fundamental to p them are outputs of the political and socio-economic processes assessed at the level of public policy, and what these outcomes mean for different population groups in terms of incomes earned. Broadly, the political economy approach to political and socio-economic analysis focuses on four related fundamental ideas. First, analysing the political economy concerns, extant analyses emphasize the relevance of this framework in understanding development relationships (Robbins 2017). Accordingly, Robbins presents a central argument to illustrate that in the context of the state and the market, political economy is fundamentally concerned with a chain of interrelated processes. Specifically, these processes comprise political, legal, economic, social, and cultural elites’ behavioural relations in society and the consequences of these relationships on other classes1 in society (Phelps 1985, 411). The linkages in question are pertinent to the discourse on globalization and employment returns to youth in Uganda. This is especially in as far as the political economy perspective helps in explication of the ways in which neoliberalism undermines state capacity and the power to create development resources. Besides, since this approach offers a framework within which to examine globalization effects in different contexts, it remains significant in the discussion on the nature of employment returns to youth as a distinct demographic group. Second, scholars2 recognize political economy as a more profound examination of the social relations, particularly power relations, political relations, and economic ones, which mutually constitute the production, distribution, and consumption of resources at different levels of society. This view easily relates to the discourse on globalization and employment returns to youth in Uganda, whose central analytical piece is the state which mediates all relations pertaining to production, exchange processes, and the nature of outcomes for each social group. The fourth idea looks at political economy as a framework within which to examine control of development resources and survival in social life (Hahnel 2015, 31). Explicated in this angle, one could argue that social relations as seen from the position of political power and economic relations constitute part of the variables for exploring how globalization-driven political and economic dynamics have shaped the functioning and execution capacity for public structures responsible for employment creation. A key argument is that due to globalization effects, the youth in Uganda, just as in other developing countries, have ended up with unsafe, indecent, low-paying, and unsustainable engagements in the job market. Thus, the essential features of political economy pertinent to globalization and employment returns are rooted in the fundamental building blocks of the approach as illustrated in this discourse. Firstly, inclined to the Marxist perspective on politics and economics, persuasive arguments3 affirm that one key feature of political economy is the fundamental philosophy that views society’s economic base as the determinant of the superstructure. In Gilder and Forbe’s analysis, the consequent dynamic processes partly help determine the

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s­ocio-­economic, cultural, and political spaces within which society’s production and distribution structures relate to yet more productive entities. These are some of the essential ideas which make a political economy approach to globalization and employment returns to youth relevant. This framework is further strengthened by the globalization theory (Sklair 2000, 2–3) of the global system and its relationship with the debate on the nature of employment returns from globalization, which is examined in some relative depth here. Specifically, the theory4 of the global system uses Transnational Practices (TNPs) to posit that globalization is largely promoted by non-state and cross-­ state actors using three types of TNPs. The first is the economic type whose agent is transnational capital. The second is the political type, which is guided by the Transnational Capitalist Class (TCC), while the third is the cultural-­ ideological type, whose mediator constitutes cultural elites as part of the global production system.5 Each type of these TNPs is mediated by a particular institution. Economic TNPs are carried out by transnational corporations such as Pepsi Cola, McDonald’s, Shell, TOTAL, Standard Chartered Bank, and Stanbic Bank, among others.6 On the other hand, political TNPs are identified with the TCC, which consists of executives and bureaucrats of the multinational companies as well as globalizing politicians, media practitioners, and their local-­ level agents. The official agents of consumerism associated with transnational cultural-ideological processes such as Western education, the arts and religious elites constitute a distinct class in the context of globalization.7 The theory of the global system avers that as TNPs intensify, they integrate countries into a borderless world order termed as globality (Pettinger 2017). The resulting production system operates by (a) eroding state control over inland and cross-border economic transactions through a free market system; (b) integrating countries by obliterating nation-state boundaries; and (c) creating interconnected extensity. These developments in turn have impact on political, socio-economic relations as well as transactions generated through transcontinental, interregional, transnational monetary flows, and networks of activity across the globe (Esfandiary 2012, 39; Held and McGrew 2007, 67). Consequently, TNPs create a transnational global system that goes way beyond a single state to control. Instead, the system is controlled and driven by the TCC, not in the interest of the states through which they operate, but for the purpose of satisfying their business interests. Thus, the economic reforms the TCC demand of the states, which include, but are not limited to, removal of barriers to international trade and the promotion of a private-led economy through privatization can still be understood within this perspective. In addition, the creation of a free market system through liberalization, tax holidays for investors, and democratization of the political environment to subordinate militarism to civilian rule constitute other measures for gratifying political and business security (de Paula et al. 2013, 221). In this way, the theory on capitalism8 of the global system suggests several critical changes as far as state capacity is concerned to shape domestic economic fortunes. One, the theory implies that the state is systematically undermined by

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strongly interested political and economic actors in the global capitalist system, which simply bypasses its system once the favourable policies have been implemented. Two, the international capitalist class closely works with the domestic political elite at the expense of state institutions in charge of investment, trade, taxation, and utilities in the developing world. This essentially means that globalization inadvertently undermines state leadership and patriotism in developing countries. Three, the erosion of state control over international geographical borders through economic transactions suggests that economic considerations, which the state largely ceases to control under globalization, take precedence over political sanity and democratic processes. Four, while the economic reforms negotiated by the TCC and spearheaded by the state appear to overall streamline the business sector and the economy generally,9 they have the overall effect of undercutting the state’s capacity to control the direction of the economy.

State Capacity for Employment Creation and Employment Returns from Globalization Generally, the evidence cited so far has attempted to explicate how globalization undermines state capacity to create jobs in an economy. Nonetheless, according to Addington (2012), the state can create more jobs by boosting private sector investment through the protectionist and export promotion policies. This view suggests that such protectionist policies should focus on shielding domestic companies from external competition through high taxes on imports to make them expensive compared to domestically produced products. The protectionist and investment promotion initiatives would at the same time focus on charging lower or no taxes to make domestically produced products cheaper on the international market. Moreover, states have the capacity not only to set conditions for foreign investors to obtain labour force from the local market but also to desist from enacting and implementing high labour pricing policies that tend to make employing local citizens more expensive than foreigners (Addington 2012). These ideas, however, would suggest the existence of cheap local capital to allow massive investment targeting youth unemployment as well as a supportive global market. The implication of these ideas is that the capitalist logic which guides production, largely dictated by market conditions, would have to be ignored.10 Yet, such investment plans would undermine any large-scale private sector–led ventures because the reality of protectionist policies is high prices in the domestic market. Moreover, the latter is likely to undermine the distribution and exchange systems in the export market since high domestic production costs are likely to similarly make exports too expensive. In the final analysis, protectionist policies which run counter to globalization logic would likely attract retaliation from foreign markets. These are some of the ideas which this study analysed in an effort to explore the nature of employment returns from globalization.

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Globalization State Capacity

● ●

Political reforms Economic reforms

Satisfactory employment Opportunities and fair employment returns to youth

Fig. 20.1  Conceptual framework (The influences investigated in this study are conceptualized as shown in the figure)

In general, globalization is one of the realities facing African countries such as Uganda in the form of TNPs, TCC, and Transnational Security (TNS).11 The systems and emerging structures have been driving globalization in Africa through encouraging (a) transnational migrations; (b) international trade; (c) formation of regional political and economic integrations, communities and unions; (d) free movement of capital; (e) adoption of neoliberal reforms such as privatization; (f) financial reforms; and (g) adoption of political reforms. Nonetheless, questions remain on the net effects of such neoliberal reforms on employment returns to youth as a vulnerable group, which this study explored. A full discussion on the TNS, TNPs, and the TCC should bring out the effect of the global relationships created and their effect on youth unemployment. Besides, the role played by the global actors, which is significant in political economy terms, should provide better understanding of the quality of employment opportunities for the youth in Uganda in the neoliberal era, as illustrated in Fig. 20.1. The conceptual framework above indicates that in this chapter, state capacity was considered as the independent variable, globalization as the mediating variable, while creation of employment opportunities and fair returns for the youth as the dependent variable. This conceptualization is based on the assumption that globalization influences state capacity to create employment opportunities. At the same time, globalization transforms the systems and structures through which employment returns to the youth are compromised. State capacity is also assumed to create these opportunities and returns directly in order to establish how globalization mediates this direct state intervention. Thus, opportunities from globalization can be, as a result of this phenomenon, creating conditions that put in place specific jobs such as those connected to the use of information and communication technologies. Significant among these jobs include Internet software and hardware development programming, engineering and technical work, website design and maintenance, social media innovations, online education, marketing, advertising, research, and manufacturing of attendant devices.12 Recent analyses further observe that globalization increases free international trade and transnational capital inflows in an economy, thereby boosting investment, which subsequently creates many more paying jobs for the local labour market (Obayelu-Abiodun 2007, 2–4). However, the gloomy reality of high unemployment in Uganda and other countries highlights the weakness of this argument and the significance of

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capitalistic development in poor countries. Capital flows and other investment resources are in the first place attracted by cheap abundant labour in poor countries like Uganda. This inopportune veracity suggests definite low employment returns from globalization to the youth who constitute the majority in the labour force. In the final analysis, based on the evidence reviewed, globalization was measured in terms of the different economic and political reforms that integrated Uganda into the global system. State capacity to execute the responsibility of creating decent, profitable, and sustainable employment opportunities for the youth was measured in terms of whether the Uganda government (a) had any programmes intended to create jobs for the youth; (b) made any direct expenditure on creating jobs for the youth; (c) financed any youth entrepreneurial efforts; (d) deliberately employed any youth in civil service; (e) established any specialized institution to employ the youth; and (f) created any political, economic, and legal environment that could promote youth self-employment. Employment opportunities were measured in terms of jobs provided by multinationals, international civil society, and local companies or through self-­ employment. Employment returns were measured in terms of (a) sufficiency of earnings from jobs; (b) decency and sustainability; (c) nature of the jobs created in terms of psychological satisfaction; and (d) satisfactoriness of the working conditions associated with the jobs. These are conceptual measurements which are deeply understood within the context of political economy, since they suggest the rationale for global flows in terms of capital, material inputs, technology, and knowledge dissemination, primarily driven by profit motivation. Moreover, the political economy framework further provides a unique paradigm for analysing the measures for employment returns as it helps explore the linkages between globalization and employment returns to youth. ­

Research Design and Methods This study was designed as a cross-sectional correlation survey involving a mixed methods approach to collect and analyse data. The correlational part of this design was used to establish how globalization had influenced the Ugandan state’s capacity to handle employment creation and how the state helps the youth to secure fair employment returns from globalization. The data used to measure the variables were collected from Kampala and Wakiso districts, the largest business districts with the highest concentration of most types of formal and informal businesses in Uganda (UBOS 2014). Wakiso was added due to its semi-rural-semi-urban characteristics. The study population targeted all the youth who were between 18 and 30 years and also worked either with multinationals, local business enterprises, self-employed, civil service, or other government institutions located in the two districts. Only the working youth were selected because they could provide reliable data about how the employment opportunities they took up had been created and the returns from these opportunities. No unemployed youth had

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any valid knowledge about these two variables. The study population also included government officials who were directly concerned with youth affairs to provide data on the role of government towards youth unemployment in a globalized environment. Since there was no data on the number of the youth working in the informal enterprises in Kampala and Wakiso, their population was assumed to be infinite or unknown. Consequently, the formula for estimating a statistically representative sample from an infinite population was used to determine the sample size for the youth as cited in Kothari (2005, 71): n=



Z 2 p (1 − p ) d2

ct



where d is the margin of error allowed in the selection of the sample. The sample was selected at 95% confidence level, implying that the margin of error was 5%. Hence, d is 5%. Z is the z-value corresponding to the 95% confidence level. So, Z is 1.96; p is the proportion of the population with the desired attribute. Therefore, p is half of 100%, which is 50%. Consequently, (1 − p), which is the proportion of the population with the undesired attribute, is given as (1 − 50%), which is also equal to 50%. Therefore: n = (1.96 ) × 50% × 50%  ÷ ( 5% ) = ( 3.8416 × 0.25 ) ÷ 0.0025   = 0.92198 ÷ 0.0025 = 384.16 ≈ 384 2



2

Therefore, the expected sample size was 384 youth. However, the actual sample (the total number of the youth who filled the questionnaires properly) was 360. In addition, using purposive sampling, six government officials were selected to provide data as key informants. The youth were selected using stratified and random sampling. Stratified sampling was used to divide the youth study population into those who worked in the public sector, the formal private sector, the informal sector, and the self-employed respondents. Since the youth in each of these strata were homogenous, they were selected using simple random sampling in order to give each youth an equal chance of being selected to participate in the study. Government officials corroborated the data collected from the youth. The data were analysed using the narrative, descriptive, data transformation, and regression methods of analysis aided by the SPSS program (Version 22).

Findings and Discussion The first research question focused on establishing how the political reforms had integrated Uganda into the global system and the extent of their influence on the state’s capacity to create employment for the youth. Respondents described both the political reforms undertaken in Uganda and the resulting

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Table 20.1  Youth description of political reforms integrating Uganda into the global system Indicators of political reforms

Regular presidential elections are held in Uganda Regular parliamentary elections are held in Uganda Uganda is divided into local governments Political leaders in local governments are regularly elected Elections in Uganda are based on multiparty arrangement Elected leaders regularly account to their electorates Ugandans are free to elect the leaders they want at all levels Uganda’s army is under civilian rule Rule of law is observed in Uganda to safeguard business Referendums are held to decide on all contentious issues Uganda is a member of the regional political/trade blocks Uganda follows all African Union economic protocols Uganda participates in international peacekeeping missions Total percentage

Percentage of youth per description (N = 360) SD

D

NS

A

SA

Mean Std.

0.0

0.0

0.0

34.7

65.3 4.89

0.537

0.0

0.0

2.5

41.2

56.3 4.77

0.615

0.0 0.0

0.0 2.6

0.0 5.0

24.0 46.2

76.0 2.96 46.2 4.69

0.509 0.436

10.0

0.0

28.8

11.2

50.0 3.51

0.512

10.0

32.0

40.0

12.0

6.0 3.34

0.363

0.0

0.0

17.5

35.0

47.5 4.21

0.704

20.0 10.0

14.0 32.0

50.0 40.0

12.0 12.0

4.0 2.53 6.0 3.34

0.619 0.363

20.0

17.5

57.5

5.0

0.0 2.50

0.443

0.0

4.0

12.0

52.0

32.0 4.68

0.302

0.0

10.0

25.0

57.5

7.5 3.78

0.552

0.0

0.0

68.0

17.0

15.0 3.36

0.150

5.7

8.0

29.7

27.0

29.6 3.71

0.472

state capacity to create employment for the youth. The findings were based on a 5-point Likert scale of responses running from strongly disagree (SD = 1), disagree (D = 2), not sure (NS = 3), agree (A = 4) and strongly agree (SA = 5), as presented in Table 20.1. From the findings in Table 20.1, the youth in the dissenting category meant that the political reforms had not had a lot of significance in relation to Uganda’s global integration. On the other hand, the respondents in the affirmative category viewed the reforms as having truly integrated Uganda into the global system. Overall, the findings indicate that the youth with divergent responses were in total 13.7% (8% + 5.5%), while those who were not sure were 29.7%. The overall affirmative responses were 56.6% (27% + 29.6%) in total. The majority proportion (56.6%) suggested Uganda had been fully integrated in the global capitalist system where one of the central features is a movement towards democratization of society (Bentley et al. 2015, 2). In fact, the resulting mean value corresponding to the total percentage (Mean = 3.71) was close to ‘4’, the code for ‘Agree’ and the magnitude of the corresponding standard

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deviation was small, observed at Std. = 0.472. This is evidence for low dispersion in the sample, implying the responses provided by the youth as individuals did not deviate much from the average response. Thus, the findings indicate that the political reforms had moved the country to the centre of globalization. These findings were further supported by the official selected from the Office of the Speaker, who explained the significance of the political reforms in integrating the country into the global system: Right from 1986 the country underwent a number of democratic reforms. These were important in many respects, but above of all, to be accepted as a worthy global actor which could do business with other countries around the world. Remember without the vital recognition of the big democracies on the globe, the World Bank and the IMF will not deal with any country, especially after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Yes, my opinion is that the democratic reforms in Uganda constituted a mandatory first step to be accepted into the global capitalist system. This implied Uganda was willing to embrace capitalistic values including the worship of capital, pursuing capital protective policies and opening up of our country beyond the political imperatives to embrace the economic policy aspects of liberalization. (Interview held on March 3, 2017)

The above narrative reveals a consistent perception in these findings about the impact of the political reforms in as far as the integration of the country into the global system was concerned. A scrutiny of the reforms revealed by the findings and their impact in relation to the globalization phenomenon confirms that they are validated by the earlier results found out in several studies (Abraham 2017, 79; Lopes 2016; Asante 2016, 131–133; Bentley et al. 2015; Shaka 2013; Deya 2006). All these analyses confirm similar reforms which other countries have undertaken in the recent past. However, as pointed out earlier, neither did these scholars delve into how the political reforms had influenced the state capacity of the integrated countries nor raise a discussion on the nature of employment returns from the globalized national structures and systems. Regarding state capacity as the central organ for directing production and employment specifically, the youth were given a number of indicators to specify those which described their opinion in this matter. Using a 5-point Likert scale of responses as summarized in Table 20.2, the youth expressed their views as illustrated. The respondents who dissented on the various indicators in Table 20.2 suggested the Ugandan state did not have the capacity to create decent and ­satisfactory employment opportunities. The divergent responses similarly suggested the youth had not derived meaningful and profitable employment returns from the globalized production, distribution, and exchange systems under globalization. The youth who were overall in agreement with the state capacity indicators demonstrated there were pathways in which the opportunities created by the globalization phenomenon could be harnessed to create employment for youth as majority in the country’s workforce. In other words,

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Table 20.2  Youth description of the Ugandan state’s capacity to create employment Indicators of state capacity

Percentage of youth per description (N = 360) SD

Government uses more labour than technology Government deliberately avoids setting a minimum wage Uganda has no labour laws inhibiting creation of more jobs Government pursues a wealth creation policy Government implements wealth creation programmes Government encourages firms to use flexitime programmes Government finances citizens’ entrepreneurial projects Government promotes job preservation by not killing any job through use of inappropriate technology Government taxes the rich to finance the poor’s projects Changes in tax regimes to allow resource redistribution There is a policy on venture capital to support start-ups Government provides crop finance to cash crop farmers Uganda provides livestock finance to pastoralists Government pursues affirmative action to create jobs Government finances projects initiated by the youth Government has a policy for creating jobs for youth Uganda has laws that make employers treat workers well Government reduced retirement age to create jobs for youth Government promptly pays retirement package to retirees Government has policy for promoting private investment Uganda protects local firms from foreign competition Uganda pursues an export promotion policy

D

NS

A

SA

Mean

Std.

5.0

11.0 47.3 16.7 20.0 3.38

0.373

0.0

10.0 22.5 31.2 36.3 4.42

0.625

0.0

24.0 16.0 30.0 30.0 3.96

0.509

10.0 10.0

12.6 5.0 36.2 36.2 3.61 0.0 30.0 18.0 42.0 4.33

0.416 0.571

10.0

28.8 50.0 11.2

0.0 2.51

2.616

10.0

12.0 30.0 32

16.0 3.50

0.363

10.0

35.0 37.5 17.5

0.0 3.21

3.714

4.0 40.0 12.0 24.0 2.53

2.609

20.0 20.0

47.5 27.5

5.0

0.0 2.20

0.423

20.0

32.0 32.0 12.0

4.0 2.68

2.342

7.5

25.0 37.5 10.0 20.0 2.78

3.552

10.0

15.0 48.0 17.0 10.0 3.32

2.154

10.0

20.0 10.0 60.0

0.0 3.66

0.927

10.0

12.0 54.0 12.0 12.0 3.34

3.815

7.0

13.2 11.7 50.5 17.6 4.25

0.766

14.0

38.0 40.0

4.0 3.23

2.404

10.0

22.2 45.3 12.5 10.0 2.54

3.537

24.0

48.0 16.0

4.0 2.31

0.148

0.0 10.0 36.3 50.0 4.35

0.123

3.7 34.0 8.1

26.0 28.0

4.0

8.0

6.0

6.0 2.17

0.418

22.9 11.9 53.1

4.0 3.64

0.599

(continued)

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Table 20.2 (continued) Indicators of state capacity

Government has a policy that ensures that attracted foreign investors get most of their employees from local citizens Uganda ensures it is cheaper for investors to employ locals than foreigners Total percentage

Percentage of youth per description (N = 360) SD

D

NS

A

SA

Mean

Std.

12.0

4.0 32.0 20.0 32.0 3.68

0.342

7.5

10.0 30.0 25.0 27.5 3.51

0.552

11.4

19.7 28.8 23.2 16.9 3.31

1.579

whether initiated by the state or private capital, the employment opportunities created in the labour market would be subject to neoliberal policies introduced in the wake of globalization intensification. Thus, at a glance, these findings indicate that the largest proportion of the youth were not sure of the state’s capacity to create employment opportunities and ensure fair employment returns from globalization to the youth, with the mean value at 3.35, suggesting the respondents were not sure even about the effects of globalization on youth employment on average. However, additive analysis of the total percentage distribution reveals that summing up, the youth who had affirmative reviews of globalization made 40.1% (23.2%  +  16.9%), compared to 31.1% (11.4% + 19.7%) whose view of the effect of globalization on the state’s capacity was rather downbeat. Generally, therefore, these results reveal three opposing views, namely the positive view which suggests the Ugandan state’s capacity to create employment opportunities for the youth; the mixed view that pointed to uncertainty about this capacity; and the pessimistic view which implied the Ugandan state’s capacity to create employment for the youth had been compromised by globalization forces. The analysis of the distribution percentages, mean values, and standard deviations corresponding to the specific indicators reveal that the majority of the youth agreed without deviating much from each other and, in so doing, concurred with the positive view as far as the study indicators were concerned. Further scrutiny of the same data reveals that respondents expressed a mixed view about the capacity of the Ugandan state to create employment opportunities for youth or help introduce supportive policies for the youth to receive profitable employment returns for the youth from globalization. Thus, the three views explained here suggest that Uganda did not have the capacity to execute its responsibility of creating employment opportunities and instituting appropriate policies to ensure fair employment returns for the youth. This idea agrees very well with the analyses undertaken by scholars13 who conducted their study in Uganda. While these scholars identify the state’s employment initiatives for the youth, they also raise the contradictions embedded in these policies. Related descriptive findings obtained about the nature of employment opportunities and returns as reported by the selected youth are presented in Table 20.3.

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Table 20.3  Description of employment opportunities and globalization returns for the youth Indicators of youth employment

Percentage of youth per description (N = 360) SD

Youth are privately employed as website designers Ugandan youth privately employed as internet experts Youth privately employed as network technicians Ugandan youth work privately as online consultants Uganda youth work privately in online markets Youth are doing rewarding online sale of goods/services Youth across gender work as online trainers/educators Youth work privately as online researchers Youth dealing in devices aiding online services Ugandan youth deal in satellite related devices Youth provide online media services as a job Multinationals in Uganda provide decent jobs to youth Multinationals in Uganda help youth create own jobs Global agencies create jobs for Ugandan youth Liberalization created decent jobs for the youth Liberalization created profitable jobs for the youth Youth have created own jobs after liberalization I hold a decent and sustainable job I am psychologically happy with my job Uganda youth employ other youth in their own firms I am satisfied with the earnings I get from my job I am contented with the working conditions in my job Total percentage

D

NS

A

SA

Mean

Std.

76

12

12

0

0

4.06

0.523

42

42

16

0

0

4.38

0.413

47.5

35

0

0

17.5 4.37

0.704

52

32

12

0

4

3.85

0.303

57.5

20

17.5

5

0

4.15

0.373

48

4

8

4

36

3.59

0.159

20

5

17.5

0

57.5 2.09

0.513

10 4.28 45.3 3.56

0.119 0.801

66 32.2

12 22.5

12 0

0 0

60

12

20

4

4

4.26

0.614

36 48

48 36

8 8

4 4

4 4

4.59 4.09

0.111 0.129

76

12

12

0

0

4.26

0.339

45.3

32.2

22.5

0

0

4.16

0.801

60

20

12

4

4

4.66

0.411

20

57.5

17.5

0

5

4.69

0.423

70

10

20

0

0

4.48

0.587

26 36 60

28 48 8

8 8 32

14 4 0

24 4 0

3.41 4.47 3.69

0.999 0.159 0.833

20

20

12

4

40

2.36

0.631

20

5

17.5

0

57.5 2.09

0.513

24.6

13.3

1.7 13.6 3.91

0.437

46.8

388 

J. M. KANYAMURWA

Table 20.3 illustrates that in total, the respondents who tended to differ on the key indicators selected for measuring the nature of employment returns from globalization to the youth were 71.4% (46.8% + 24.6%). Accordingly, this was the proportion of youth who were not satisfied with the nature of employment returns, with the undecided observed at 13.3%. On the other hand, youth who reported relatively satisfactory employment outcomes from globalization were 15.3% (13.6% + 1.7%), a proportion which suggests fairly few satisfied employed youth with the returns received from the market. This proportion is consistent with the mean value ( 3.91) corresponding to the total statistical information, which was close to ‘4’, suggesting that on average, respondents were not satisfied with both the quantity and quality of employment returns to youth from globalization. Besides, the magnitude of the corresponding standard deviation (Std.  =  0.437) was small, suggesting that in general respondents did not deviate much from this average view. The data on political reforms which essentially indicates how Uganda had further been integrated into the global system, and the consequent neoliberal policies adopted by the state, provided the basis for more analysis. Data transformation was conducted by computing all the responses provided to describe the political reforms as one variable named ‘Political reforms’. The same was done to compute the responses provided to describe employment returns from globalization, to form a global variable named ‘employment returns’. Similar computation was conducted to sum up all the responses given to describe the nature of employment returns from globalization into a global variable named ‘ER’. Thereafter, linear and multiple regressions were conducted to establish how the political reforms that integrated Uganda into a global system influenced state capacity to create employment or help enhance employment returns from globalized productive structures to the youth. Table  20.4 presents the results generated from these regressions. The standardized coefficient in the first section of Table 20.4 indicates that before introducing the political reforms which further integrated Uganda into the global system model, the state had the capacity to create employment Table 20.4  Linear regression coefficients for political reforms and employment returns Model

Unstandardized Coefficients

Predictors

Dependent Variables

State capacity

(constant) ER (Constant) Political reforms (Constant) ER ER

State capacity Globalization Employment

B

Std. Error

1.081 0.835 1.593 0.625 0.177 0.480 0.567

0.181 0.052 0.237 0.069 0.137 0.043 0.039

Standardized Coefficients Beta

0.768 0.566 0.442 0.507

t 5.963 15.908 6.716 9.110 1.299 11.219 14.646

Sig. 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.196 0.000 0.000

20  THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF GLOBALIZATION AND EMPLOYMENT RETURNS… 

389

Table 20.5  Sobel test for the significance of mediation effect of political reforms on employment

B for state capacity B for political reforms Std. Error for employment Std. Error for employment

0.625 0.567 0.069 0.039

Sobel test Aroina test Goodman test

Test Statistic

Std. Error

7.68792579 7.67485835 7.7010602

0.04609501 0.04617349 0.04601639

p-value 0 0 0

opportunities as well as facilitate fair employment returns (ER) for the youth (Beta = 0.768, t = 15.908, Sig. = 0.000