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Economic Reform and Political Transition in Africa The Quest for a Politics of Development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Peter M. Lewis
Peter M. Lewis
Affiliation:
American University, Stanford University
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Abstract

The 1980s were bracketed by crises in Africa, as protracted economic malaise was succeeded by a wave of political reform. Analysts have sought to understand the sources of economic decline as well as the political requisites for recovery in the region. Neoclassical and structuralist analyses have been challenged by state-centric views of economic change. The latter perspective emphasizes the need for capable developmental states as a basis for long-term adjustment, but a political theory of economic change is still lacking. Such a theory must address the institutional foundations of growth, as well as the shifting basis of social coalitions in African regimes. Political liberalization suggests the possibility of a new setting for economic reform, though the effects of political reform on institutions and coalitions remain ambiguous, and democratization cannot be regarded as a panacea for the region's developmental failure. Future research must look more closely at the interests and structures in transitional regimes, and scholars should adopt a more comparative vantage on Africa's challenges of reform.

Type
Review Articles
Information
World Politics , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , October 1996 , pp. 92 - 129
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1996

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References

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22 Jackson and Rosberg (fn. 20).

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30 World Bank (fn. 1); see also Goran Hyden, “Governance and the Study of Politics,” in Hyden and Bratton, 5.

31 World Bank (fn. 1).

32 Sandbrook (fn. 20), 54–55.

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35 Ibid., 506. See also Deborah Brautigam, “Governance and Economy,” Working Paper, no. 815 (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, December 1991). In an important recent contribution, Merilee Grindle has elaborated the elements of state capacity in developing countries and the impact of sustained crisis on government capabilities. Grindle, See, Challenging the State: Crisis and Innovation in Latin America andAfrica (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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37 See Kahler, “Orthodoxy and Its Alternatives: Explaining Approaches to Stabilization and Adjustment,” in Nelson (fn. 16), 55.

38 Gordon (fn. 2), 113–14. See also Mosley, Harrigan, and Toye (fn. 3), 38; and Kahler, Miles, “International Financial Institutions and the Politics of Adjustment,” in Nelson, Joan, ed., Fragile Coalitions (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers for the Overseas Development Council, 1989), 144Google Scholar.

39 See Putnam, Robert D., “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic ofTwo-Level Games,” International Organization 42 (Summer 1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Thomas Callaghy, “Toward State Capability and Embedded Liberalism in the Third World: Lessons for Adjustment,” in Nelson (fn. 38), 120; and Lehman, Howard, Indebted Development (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 Callaghy (fn. 39), 120–21. John Waterbury has also elaborated on the pursuit of reform by politically autonomous states; Waterbury, see, Exposed to Innumerable Delusions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 33Google Scholar.

41 See also Boone, Catherine, “Trade, Taxes and Tribute: Market Liberalization and the New Importers in West Africa,” WorldDevelopment 22 (March 1994)Google Scholar; and Lewis (fn. 21).

42 See the World Bank (fn. 3), 8; and Mosley, Harrigan, and Toye (fn. 3), 301.

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44 Callaghy (fn. 34), 476.

45 Herbst (fn. 17), 954–55.

46 Mosley, Harrigan, and Toye (fn. 3) distinguish between resistance at the level of policy formation and obstruction of implementation (p. 300). See also Grindle and Thomas (fn. 29), 38.

47 It will be recalled that the revolt of December 31, 1981, was Rawlings's second coup. After initially seizing power in mid-1979, Rawlings summarily tried and executed three former heads of state while proceeding with a planned democratic transition. Within two years he again intervened to oust the Hilla Limann government.

48 Chazan, “The Political Transformation of Ghana under the PNDC”; Kraus, “The Political Economy of Stabilization and Structural Adjustment in Ghana.”

49 Chazan (fn. 48), 24.

50 Richard Jeffries, “Leadership Commitment and Political Opposition to Structural Adjustment in Ghana,” 164.

51 See Chazan (fn. 48); Kwame Ninsin, The PNDC and the Problem of Legitimacy”; and Jeffrey Herbst, “Labor in Ghana under Structural Adjustment: The Politics of Acquiescence.”

52 Chazan (fn. 48), 37–38.

53 Modeled on United Nations recommendations for compensatory policies to buffer the effects of austerity, PAMSCAD was introduced by the Rawlings government in 1988.

54 Chazan (fn. 48), 37–38; Ninsin (fn. 51), 61. Moreover, as Gwendolyn Milcell observes in her chapter “Equity Issues in Ghana's Rural Development,” the differential impact of liberalization in the rural areas engendered uneven political responses.

55 Olukoshi, “Introduction: From Crisis to Adjustment in Nigeria,” 8.

56 See Lewis, Peter M., “Endgame in Nigeria? The Politics of a Failed Democratic Transition,” African Affairs 93 (July 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Diamond, Larry, “Nigeria: The Uncivic Society and the Descent into Praetorianism,” in Diamond, Larry, Linz, Juan J., and Lipset, Seymour Martin, eds., Politics in Developing Countries, 2d ed. (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1995)Google Scholar.

57 In Olukoshi see Shehu Yahaya, “State versus Market: The Privatization Programme of the Nigerian State”; Akin Fadahunsi, “Devaluation: Implications for Employment, Inflation, Growth and Development”; Abdul Raufu Mustapha, “Structural Adjustment and Agrarian Change in Nigeria”; and Adebayo Olukoshi, “Structural Adjustment and Nigerian Industry.” On the problem of alternative prescriptions, see van de Walle (fn. 18).

58 Jibrin Ibrahim, “The Transition to Civil Rule: Sapping Democracy.” The government's repressive stance toward dissident social groups is also stressed by Yusuf Bangura and Bjorn Beckman, “African Workers and Structural Adjustment: A Nigerian Case-Study”; and by Attahiru Jega, “Professional Associations and Structural Adjustment.”

59 Barbara Grosh, “Through the Structual Adjustment Minefield,” in Widner.

60 The importance of policy credibility is stressed by Rodrik (fn. 43); and Weingast (fn. 16). At the macroeconomic level, Paul Collier has pointed to agencies of restraint as a crucial institutional support for growth. See “Africa's External Economic Relations, 1960–1990,” African Affairs 90 (July 1991), 339. Problems of supply response and institutional change in one sector are discussed in Commander, Simon, ed., Structural Adjustment and Agriculture: Theory and Practice in Africa and Latin America (London: James Currey for the Overseas Development Institute, 1989)Google Scholar.

61 Biersteker, Thomas J., “Reducing the Role of the State in the Economy: A Conceptual Exploration of IMF and World Bank Prescriptions,” International Studies Quarterly 34 (1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Young (fn. 7); and Brautigam (fn. 35).

62 Chazan and Rothchild, “The Political Repercussions of Economic Malaise,” in Callaghy and Ravenhill.

63 Callaghy (fn. 34), 471–74, 506.

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65 Kraus (fn. 48), 129. Kwasi Anyemedu presents evidence of modest diversification away from cocoa in “Export Diversification under the Structural Adjustment Program,” in Rothchild.

66 See Kraus (fn. 48); Paul Nugent, “Educating Rawlings: The Evolution of Government Policy toward Smuggling”; and E. Gyimah-Boadi, “State Enterprises Divestiture: Recent Ghanaian Experiences.” On challenges to state capacity in the process of economic reform, see Herbst, Jeffrey, The Politics of Reform in Ghana, 1983–1991 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992)Google Scholar.

67 Sara Berry, “Coping with Confusion: African Farmers‘Responses to Economic Instability in the 1970s and 1980s,” in Callaghy and Ravenhill.

68 The collective action problems of peasants are also noted by Bates (fn. 28); and byJennifer Wid-ner, “The Discovery of Politics: Smallholder Reactions to the Cocoa Crisis of 1988–90 in Cote d'lvoire,” in Callaghy and Ravenhill.

69 See, for example, Gerschenkron, Alexander, Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962)Google Scholar; Haggard, Stephan, Pathwaysfrom the Periphery (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990)Google Scholar; Amsden, Alice, Asia's Next Giant: South Korea and Late Industrialization (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989)Google Scholar; Onis, Ziya, “The Logic of the Developmental State,” Comparative Politics 24, no. 1 (1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Leftwich, Adrian, “Bringing Politics Back In: Towards a Model of the Developmental State,” Journal of Development Studies 31 (February 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Evans (fn. 24).

70 These elements are also cited by Callaghy (fn. 34).

71 This is stressed, for example, by Moore, Barrington, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Boston: Beacon, 1966)Google Scholar; and in a different context by Przeworski, Adam, Democracy and the Market: Political andEconomic Reforms in Eastern Europe andLatin America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

72 See, for example, Young (fn. 26); Jackson and Rosberg (fn. 20); Bienen, Henry, Armies and Parties in Africa (New York: Africana Publishers, 1978)Google Scholar; Collier, Ruth Berins, Regimes in TropicalAfrica (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982)Google Scholar; and Chazan, Naomi, Mortimer, Robert, Raven-hill, John, and Rothchild, Donald, Politics and Society in Contemporary Africa, 2d. ed. (Boulder Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

73 Hyden (fn. 30).

74 In this sense, Hyden offers a substantive view of governance that stresses general qualities of politics rather than a procedural definition that identifies institutions and formal rules. The distinction between substantive and procedural treatments of democracy is discussed by Dahl, Robert, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971)Google Scholar; and Huntingdon, Samuel, The Third Wave (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990)Google Scholar.

75 Jackson and Rosberg (fn. 20); see, in Hyden and Bratton: Joel Barkan, “The Rise and Fall of a Governance Realm in Kenya”; and Janet MacGaffey, “Initiatives from Below: Zaire's Other Path to Social and Economic Restructuring.” Nigeria has also moved in this direction in recent years. The process of decay is of course relative; neither Kenya nor Nigeria has approached Zaire's nadir.

76 See, in Hyden and Bratton: Naomi Chazan, “Liberalization, Governance, and Political Space in Ghana”; Pearl Robinson, “Grassroots Legitimation of Military Governance in Burkina Faso and Niger: The Core Contradictions”; and Aili Mari Tripp, “Local Organizations, Participation and the State in Tanzania.”

77 Crawford Young and Babacar Kante, “Governance, Democracy, and the 1988 Senegalese Elections”; and John Holm and Patrick Molutsi, “State-Society Relations in Botswana: Beginning Liberalization”; in Hyden and Bratton.

78 Bratton and van de Walle, “Toward Governance in Africa: Popular Demands and State Responses”; in Hyden and Bratton.

79 For a general discussion of civil society in an African context, see Harbeson, John W., Rothchild, Donald, and Chazan, Naomi, eds., Civil Society and the State in Africa (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rien-ner Publishers, 1994)Google Scholar; and Bratton, Michael, “Beyond the State: Civil Society and Associational Life in Africa,” World Politics 41 (April 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

80 See especially Tripp (fn. 76); and Chazan (fn. 76). For a broader discussion, see Soto, Hernando de, The Other Path: The Invisible Revolution in the Third World (New York: Harper and Row, 1989)Google Scholar.

81 MacGaffey (fn. 75).

82 See Young (fn. 7), 242. On the genesis of state failure, see Zartman, I. William, ed., Collapsed States: The Disintegration andRestoration ofLegitimateAuthority (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1995)Google Scholar.

83 These debates are discussed by Haggard, Stephan and Kaufman, Robert, The Political Economy of Democratic Transitions (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995)Google Scholar; and by Przeworski (fn. 71). See also Huntington (fn. 74).

84 A cogent assessment of these views is offered by Jeffrey Herbst in “The Dilemmas of Explaining Political Upheaval: Ghana in Comparative Perspective.”

85 See, for example, Michael Bratton, “Economic Crisis and Political Realignment in Zambia”; and Herbst (fn. 84).

86 Westebbe(fn. 15).

87 Mwesiga Baregu, “The Rise and Fall of the One-Party State in Tanzania.”

88 This is consistent with the analyses offered by Bratton (fn. 85); van de Walle (fn. 23); and Herbst (fn. 84).

89 Bratton (fn. 85), 112.

90 Widner, “Political Reform in Anglophone and Francophone Countries.”

91 Cited by Donald Rothchild, “Structuring State-Society Relations in Africa: Toward an Enabling Political Environment,” 206. See also Young (fn. 7), 231.

92 Young (fn. 7).

93 A discussion of the diverse factors contributing to democratic consolidation is beyond the scope of this essay. For useful treatments see Huntingdon (fn. 74); Diamond, Larry, “Economic Development and Democracy Reconsidered,” American Behavioral Scientist 35 (March—June 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Putnam, Robert, Making Democracy Work (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993)Google Scholar.

94 Callaghy (fn. 34). See also his excellent comparative treatment, “Lost Between State and Market” (fn. 20).

95 Bates, “The Impulse to Reform in Africa,” in Widner, 14.

96 Callaghy (fn. 34), 484.

97 Young (fn. 7), 242.

98 Ibid., 245; Callaghy (fn. 34), 481. Janine Aron has argued that constitutional reform, as embodied in democratic transition, can serve as a foundation for other levels of institutional change. See Aron (fn. 64).

99 Ernest J. Wilson III, “Creating a Research Agenda for the Study of Political Change in Africa,” in Widner, 254.

100 Aron (fn. 64). On path dependence more generally, see North (fn. 25). Crawford Young stresses the historical continuities of African regimes in The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994). Ernest Wilson (fn. 99), in his methodological essay on analyzing Africa's transitions, argues for a “modified structuralist” approach, which balances background conditions with the motives and initiatives of political actors.

101 Obviously, such a project does not imply a positive effect on outcomes in the region, any more than research into democratic consolidation guarantees the ascendance of democracy.

102 These questions are addressed at a preliminary level by Walle, Nicolas van de, “Crisis and Opportunity in Africa,” Journal of Democracy 6 (April 1995)Google Scholar.

103 On the limitations of choice-theoretic approaches, see Grindle, Merilee, “The New Political Economy: Positive Economics and Negative Politics,” in Meier, Gerald M., ed., Politics andPolicy Making in Developing Countries: Perspectives on the New PoliticalEconomy (San Francisco: ICS Press, 1991)Google Scholar. An important recent study of senior policymakers is Leonard, David, African Successes: Four Public Managers of Kenyan Rural Development (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991)Google Scholar.

104 In the Latin American context, see Ames, Barry, Political Survival: Politicians and Public Policy in Latin America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987)Google Scholar; and Geddes, Barbara, Politician's Dilemma: Building State Capacity in Latin America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994)Google Scholar.

105 See Collier (fn. 60); Aron (fn. 64); and van de Walle (fn. 102).

106 Important treatments are found in Ensminger, Jean, Making a Market: The Institutional Transformation of an African Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992)Google Scholar; and Berry, Sara, No Condition Is Permanent: The Social Dynamics of Agrarian Change in Sub-Saharan Africa (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993)Google Scholar.

107 See, for example, William Easterly and Ross Levine, “Africa's Growth Tragedy: Policies, Ethnic Divisions, and Neighbors” (Manuscript, World Bank, October 1995); and Thomas Callaghy, “Africa: Back to the Future?” in Diamond and Plattner (fn. 11), 140–41.

108 Some recent research incorporating Africa into cross-regional perspectives include David Lin-dauer and Roemer, Michael, eds., Asia andAfrica: Legacies and Opportunities in Development (San Francisco: Institute for Contemporary Studies, 1994)Google Scholar; Stein, Howard, ed., Asian Industrialization and Africa: Studies in Policy Alternatives to Structural Adjustment (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Krueger, Anne and Bates, Robert, eds. Political and Economic Interactions in Economic Policy Reform (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1993)Google Scholar; and Haggard, Stephan and Webb, Steven, eds., Votingfor Reform: Democracy, Political Liberalization, and Economic Adjustment (New York: Oxford University Press for the World Bank, 1994)Google Scholar. See also Nelson (fn. 16); and Grindle (fn. 35).