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In Search of Development: Some Directions for Further Investigation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Zaki Ergas
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Extract

The rapidly deteriorating social and economic situation in sub-Saharan Africa, and the need for large-scale action to reverse that ominous trend, are captured well in the following paragraph:

It is becoming evident that Africa is in a state of breathtaking and grievous crisis whose… likes may not have been seen anywhere in the West since the 14th century Plague. Twenty-nine of the world's 36 poorest nations are to be found south of the Sahara desert… and 24 of them are now appealing for emergency aid to ward off famine… The percentage of Africans living in absolute poverty rose from 82 percent to 91 percent through the 1970s. In 1983 per capita food production was down by 14 percent from 1981. Five million Africans are currently refugees. Five million African children died this year; another five million were crippled by malnutrition and disease.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , June 1986 , pp. 303 - 333
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

Page 303 note 1 Washington Post, 31 December 1984, editorial.Google Scholar

Page 303 note 2 Jaycox, Edward V., ‘Africa: development challenges and the World Bank's response’, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 6 08 1985, pp. 3, 6, and 15.Google Scholar

Page 304 note 1 Huntington, Samuel P. in his monumental Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven and London, 1968) deals, inter alia, with the issues involved with government-building in modernising societies.Google Scholar

Page 306 note 1 On Zaïre, see MacGaffey, Janet, ‘How to Survive and Become Rich Amidst Devastation: the second economy of Zaïre’, in African Affairs (London), 82, 328, 07 1983, pp. 351–66;Google Scholar on Uganda, see Lemarchand, René, ‘The State, the Parallel Economy and the Changing Structure of Patronage Systems’, Conference on ‘Reordering the State in Africa’, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 07 1985, p. 23, where it is noted that ‘In 1981, approximately two-thirds of Uganda's monetary GDP went into the parallel economy’; on Angola,Google Scholar see Morice, A., ‘Commerce parallèle et troc à Luanda’, in Politique africaine (Paris), 17, 03 1985, pp. 88–104.Google Scholar On the vitality of parallel markets in Africa, see ‘On Sudan/Zaïre Border, Traders Run High Risks’, in African Business (London), 07 1985.Google Scholar

Page 306 note 2 Greed of such proportions is almost incomprehensible. Kapuscinski, Ryszard in his fascinating study, The Emperor: downfall of an autocrat (San Diego, New York, and London, 1983), p. 45, provides an almost ‘poetic’ explanation of ‘ordinary’ corruption: ‘In a poor country… money is a wonderful, thick hedge, dazzling and always blooming, which separates you from everything else. Through that hedge you do not see creeping poverty, you do not smell the stench of misery, and you do not hear voices of human dregs… You have money; that means you have wings. You are the bird of paradise everyone admires’.Google Scholar

Page 307 note 1 Lemarchand, op.cit. pp. 3, 6, and 8.

Page 307 note 2 The African state has been described as: decaying, kleptocratic, predatory, and prebendal. See Diamond, Larry, ‘The Political Economy of Corruption in Nigeria’, African Studies Association, Los Angeles, 11 1984;Google ScholarJoseph, Richard, ‘Class, State and Prebendal Politics in Nigeria’, in The Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics (London), 21, 3, 06 1984, pp. 21–38;Google ScholarYoung, Crawford, ‘Zaïre: is there a state?’, in Canadian Journal of African Studies (Ottawa), 18, 1, 1984, pp. 80–2;Google ScholarGould, David, Bureaucratic Corruption in the Third World: the case of Zaire (New York, 1980);Google Scholar and Sfetzel, M., ‘Political Graft and the Spoils System in Zambia: the state as a resource in itself’, in Review of African Political Economy (London), 24, 1982, pp. 4–21.Google Scholar

Page 308 note 1 Sklar, Richard L., ‘The Nature of Class Domination in Africa’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), 17, 4, 12 1979, pp. 531–52.Google Scholar

Page 308 note 2 Jackson, Robert H. and Rosberg, Carl G., Personal Rule in Black Africa: prince, autocrat, prophet, tyrant (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1982).Google Scholar

Page 308 note 3 For a masterful analysis, see Sylla, Lanciné, ‘Succession of the Charismatic Leader: the Gordian knot of African politics’, in Daedalus (Cambridge, Mass.), III, 2, Spring 1982, pp. 11–28.Google Scholar

Page 309 note 1 Diamond, op.cit.Google Scholar

Page 309 note 2 Ibid. p. 17. In general, however, socialist states have been relatively less corrupt than capitalist régimes; clearly Diamond's ‘law’ applies to the latter, but not to the former. I am indebted to Otwin Marenin for this important clarification.

Page 310 note 1 ‘Ghana: interview with Dr Kwesi Botchwey’, in West Africa (London), 28 01 1985.Google ScholarPubMed

Page 310 note 2 The literature is quite abundant on economic issues, especially from a liberal market-economy perspective. See, for example, Killick, Tony, Development Economics in Action: a study of economic policies in Ghana (London, 1978),Google Scholar and more recently, Gosh, P. K., Developing Africa: a modernization perspective (Greenwood, 1984).Google Scholar On the controversial rôle of the I.M.F., see J., Williamson (ed), IMF Conditionality (Cambridge, Mass, 1983);Google Scholar and for an additional country study, see Ergas, Zaki, ‘The State and Economic Deterioration: the Tanzanian case’, in the journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, XX, 3, 11 1982, pp. 286–308.Google Scholar

Page 310 note 3 The story is told in detail by Curry, Robert L. Jr, ‘Mineral Revenues for Financing Economic Development: case study of Zambia during 1970–78’, in The American Journal of Economics and Sociology (New York), 43, 1, 01 1984, pp. 37–52.Google Scholar

Page 310 note 4 Young, loc.cit. See also ‘Zaire: expectations low for billion dollar power scheme’, in Africa News (Durham, N.C.), 6 09 1980.Google ScholarPubMed

Page 311 note 1 One of the most scathing indictments of this phenomenon is found in Verhaegen, Benôit, ‘Impérialisme technologique et bourgeoisie nationale au Zaïre’, in Catherine, Coquery-Vidrovitch (ed.), Connaissance du tiers monde (Paris, 1978), cited in Young, loc.cit.Google Scholar

Page 311 note 2 Bates, Robert H., Markets and States in Tropical Africa: the political basic of agricultural policies (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1981).Google Scholar See also Hyden, Goran, Beyond Ujamaa in Tanzania: underdevelopment and an uncaptured peasantry (London and Berkeley, 1980).Google Scholar

Page 312 note 1 Hermessi, Elbaki, ‘States and Regimes in the Maghrib’, in Halim, Barakat (ed), Contemporary North Africa (Washington, D.C., 1985), p. 160, published by the Centre for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University.Google Scholar

Page 312 note 2 Lemarchand at the Georgetown symposium.

Page 312 note 3 A recent U.S-A.I.D. Memorandum, ‘Policy Reform in Africa in 1983 and 1984’, Washington, D.C., Summer 1985, identifies no less than 16 African countries which have on their own imposed austerity measures comparable to those demanded by the I.M.F.

Page 313 note 1 This line of argument is convincingly defended by Mahoney, Richard D., JFK: ordeal in Africa (Oxford and New York, 1983),Google Scholar which I reviewed in The Journal of Modern African Studies, 22, 2, 06 1984, pp. 344–6.Google Scholar

Page 313 note 2 Welch, Claude E. Jr, ‘The Military and the State in Africa’, in Zaki, Ergas (ed), The African State in Transition (New York and London, forthcoming).Google Scholar From the same author, see also ‘Military Disengagement from Politics?: incentives and obstacles in political change’, in Baynham, Simon J. (ed.), Military Power and Politics in Black Africa (London, 1986),Google Scholar and ‘Civil Military Relations:perspectives from the Third World’, in Armed Forces and Society (Cabin John, MD), 11, 2, Winter 1985, pp. 183–98.Google Scholar For an insider's view, see Oyediran, Oyeleye (ed), Nigerian Government and Politics under Military Rule, 1966–79 (London, 1979).Google Scholar

Page 314 note 1 See, for example, ‘Interview: Major-General Muhammadu Buhari’, in Africa Report (Washington, DC.), 30, 4, 07–08 1985;Google Scholar‘Nigeria: debate on the future’, in Africa Now (London), 05 1985Google Scholarand ‘The Diarchy Debate’, in West Africa, 13 May 1985.Google Scholar

Page 314 note 2 That conclusion was reached by Diamond, Larry in his seminal article on ‘Nigeria in Search of Democracy’, in Foreign Affairs (New York), 62, 4, Spring 1984, pp. 905–27.Google Scholar For an opposing point of view, namely that to institutionalise the rôle of the military in government could be dangerous, see Callaghy, Thomas M., ‘Politics and Vision in Africa: the interplay of domination, equality and liberty’, in Patrick, Chabal (ed.), Freedom, Force and Faith: reflections on democracy and development in Africa (London, forthcoming).Google Scholar Two recent books on the diarchy debate in Nigeria are Nwankwo, Arthur, Civilianized Soldiers (Enugu, 1984),Google Scholar and Ikoku, S. G., Nigeria's Fourth Coup d'Etat (Enugu, 1985).Google Scholar

Page 315 note 1 McGowan, Pat and Johnson, Thomas H., ‘African Military Coups d'État and Underdevelopment: a quantitative historical analysis’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, 22, 4, 12 1984, pp. 633–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Page 315 note 2 Phillips, Claude S., ‘Political versus Administrative Development: what the Nigerian experience contributes’, International Studies Association, Washington, D.C., 5–9 03 1985, p. 13.Google Scholar The military are far from being immune from corruption, and there are reports that some of the richest men in Nigeria are former generals. Cf. Nzeribe, Chief F. A., Nigeria: another hope betrayed (London, 1985).Google Scholar

Page 315 note 3 Phillips, op.cit.

Page 315 note 4 I predicted a gloomy future for the second Shagari Government in my review of Williams's, David rather hagiographic President and Power in Nigeria. The Life of Shehu Shagari (London, 1982),Google Scholar in The Journal of Modern African Studies, 21, 4, 12 1983, pp. 712–14.Google Scholar

Page 315 note 5 See the two lengthy articles on ‘Nigeria’, in the Financial Times (London), in the first week of 01 1985.Google ScholarPubMed

Page 316 note 1 Rothchild, Donald, ‘An Appraisal of the Ghana Experience, 1972–78’, in Comparative Politics (New York), 12, 4, 07 1980, pp. 459–79, gives us a balanced account of the attempt to form a ‘Union Government’ in Ghana and its ultimate failure.Google Scholar

Page 316 note 2 See the three articles by Austin, Dennis on the problems of the University of Ghana in West Africa, 9, 16, and 23 September 1985.Google Scholar

Page 317 note 1 ‘Interview with President Siaka Stevens’, in ibid. 9 September 1985, p. 1849.

Page 317 note 2 ‘Uganda: new regime, old conflict’, in Africa News, XXVI, 3, 10 02 1986.Google Scholar

Page 317 note 3 Voll, John O., ‘The Sudan after Nimeri’ in Current History (Philadelphia), 05 1985, pp. 213–6.Google Scholar

Page 318 note 1 ‘The Diarchy Debate’, p. 938.

Page 318 note 2 The question of the relevance of the Latin-American model is a popular theme among many Africanist scholars. The work they all refer to is David, Collier (ed.), The New Authoritarianism in Latin America (Princeton, 1979).Google Scholar

Page 319 note 1 Another of Kapuscinski's insights that deserves to be reported here is that revolutions may come and go, but life remains the same for most people. To the extent that ‘man does not live by bread alone’, however, the ‘psychological’ gains achieved by revolutions are, of course, important. Change will come slowly and affect a limited number of people.

Page 319 note 2 The Lagos Plan of Action, adopted by the O.A.U. in 1980, rapidly became the ‘Bible’ of those supporting a self-reliant development strategy for Africa, notably by industrialisation through economic integration. The best-known attempts at the latter are: the Economic Community of West African States created in 1972, and the Preferential Tariffs Agreement established in 1983, with 12 members from East and Southern Africa. See ‘ECOWAS: the first decade’, in West Africa, 27 May 1985, pp. 1047–63; and Elaigwu, J. Isawa, ‘Toward Continental Integration: supranationalism and the future of Africa’, in Shaw, Timothy M. (ed.), Alternative Futures for Africa (Boulder, 1982), pp. 131–51.Google Scholar The Berg Report, which is often portrayed as the antithesis of the Lagos Plan, is the World Bank's export-oriented strategy: see Accelerated Development in Sub-Sharan Africa: an agenda for action (Washington, D.C., 1981).Google Scholar

Page 320 note 1 Henry Bruton in his review of Robinson, Joan, Aspects of Development and Underdevelopment (New York and London, 1979),Google Scholar in Economic Development and Cultural Change (Chicago), 30, 1, 10 1981, pp. 193–5, writes that while ‘much is wrong with the activities of transnational corporations, the aid and loan programs and mechanisms, the tariff and import policies of the industrialised West and Japan… and so on’, this is not the same as to say that African countries ‘should isolate themselves from the capitalist West’ (and Japan), as Robinson advocates.Google Scholar

Page 320 note 2 The major effort by the leaders of mainland China in the 1980s to develop commercial ties with the industrialised West and Japan, strongly suggests that even for a big and largely self-reliant country, economic development (perhaps after a certain threshold has been reached and self-sufficiency in food has been achieved) requires an extraverted strategy to important capital and technology.

Page 321 note 1 For an important analysis of the industrial/urban bias in Africa and its noxious consequences, see Bates, op.cit.

Page 322 note 1 See Bates, Robert H., ‘Some Conventional Orthodoxies in the Study of Agrarian Change’, in World Politics (Princeton), 36, 2, 01 1984, pp. 241–2. He has punctured two of the big ‘myths’ on peasant society in Africa: that of the ‘Natural Economy’ (absence of markets), and that of the ‘Peasant Economy’ (labour and capital not separated). He writes that: ‘Despite myths to the contrary, indigenous peoples throughout much of Africa turned quickly, vigorously, and skillfully to production for colonial markets’, and ‘the stunning irony of the matter is that it was often the governments of the colonial powers… who advocated “communal” property rights, whereas members of the indigenous agrarian societies championed the cause of private ownership’.Google Scholar

Page 322 note 2 Leo, Christopher, Land and Class in Kenya (Toronto, Buffalo, and London, 1984), makes an important contribution to the development literature by tracing the rise of a small-holder class.Google Scholar

Page 322 note 3 Weitz, Raanan, Integrated Rural Development: the Rehovot approach (Rehovot, 1979), is an extremely useful pamphlet, being based on experiences in Latin America, Asia, and Africa where Israeli experts were active. Weitz was for more than three decades the director of the Jewish Agency's Settlement Department.Google Scholar

Page 324 note 1 Jackson, H. F., ‘The African Crisis: drought and debt’, in Foreign Affairs, 63, 5, Summer 1985, pp. 1084–94, notes that 'H. J. Heiz Company's inverstment in Zimbabwe's Olivine Industries, a large producer of edible oils, soaps, candles and protein meal, exemplifies the enormous possibilities both for African productivity and African-American collaboration’.Google Scholar

Page 324 note 2 For a good overview of relevant economic policies, see Roemer, Michael, ‘Economic Development in Africa: performance since independence, and a strategy of the future’, in Daedalus, III, 2, Spring 1982, pp. 125–48.Google Scholar

Page 324 note 3 U.S.-A.I.D. Memorandum, ‘Policy Reform in Africa’.Google Scholar

Page 324 note 4 See ‘Airborne Smugglers Supply Lagos’, in The Washington Post, to October 1985, p. A35: ‘A senior Western diplomat here – using government figures showing that 350,000 air travel tickets with an average value of $1,000 each were purchased by Nigerians last year–estimates that air travel expenditure represents 10 percent of the nation's annual discretionary income after paying for debt service and essential imports’.

Page 325 note 1 Using the official exchange rates (one Naira equals slightly more than one U.S.$), subsidised petrol in Nigeria costs about half that in neighbouring C.F.A. (hard currency) countries. But the N can be obtained in the black market for about a quarter of its official value (25 U.S. cents). Simple arithmetic shows that the smugglers make about 800 per cent profit, and there is no doubt that some high-level officials are involved in this lucrative traffic.

Page 325 note 2 See Hirschmann, Albert O., ‘The Turn to Authoritarianism in Latin America and the Search for its Economic Determinants’, in Collier, (ed.), op.cit. pp. 87ff. I agree with him that the shrinking of the ‘economic pie’ in Africa has a lot to do with the ‘hijacking’ of the ‘entrepreneurial and accumulative function’ of the economy. The ‘reform function’, which is ‘equilibrating and distributive’, must be activated after a ‘powerful but disequilibrating’ push by the entrepreneurial function. If the order of the functions is reversed, the result will be economic stagnation and social discontent.Google Scholar

Page 325 note 3 Galbraith, John Kenneth, The Nature of Mass Poverty (Cambridge and London, 1979, p. 111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Page 325 note 4 Quoted by Hirschmann, op.cit. p. 62.

Page 326 note 1 United Nations General Assembly, ‘Resolutions on the NIEO’, in Reubens, E. P. (ed.), The Challenge of the New International Economic Order (Boulder, 1981), pp. 19–37. The Independent Commission on Intrernational Development Issues produced the two documents generally referred to as the ‘Brandt Reports’.Google Scholar

Page 326 note 2 See Tony, Killick (ed.), The Quest for Economic Stabilisation: the IMF and the Third World (London, 1984),Google Scholar and The IMF and Stabilisation: developing country experiences (London, 1984.Google Scholar

Page 329 note 1 On the state/church dichotomy, I was inspired by O'Brien, Conor Cruise, ‘Why Israel Can't Take “Bold Steps” for Peace‘,, in The Atlantic (London), 256, 4, 10 1985, pp. 45–55.Google Scholar

Page 329 note 2 See Parrinder, Geoffre P., West African Religion: a study of the beliefs of Akan, Ewe, Yoruba, Ibo and kindred peoples (London, 1961;Google Scholar and Bastide, Roger, ‘Religions africaines et structures de civilisations’, and ‘Le Bantou problématique’, in Présence africaine (Paris), 66, 19, pp. 1–35 and 101–10.Google Scholar

Page 330 note 1 See the original analysis of Stokes, Henry Scott, ‘Lost Samurai: the withered soul of postwar Japan’, in Harper's (New York), 271, 1625, 10 1985, pp. 55–63.Google Scholar

Page 331 note 1 See, especially, ‘Liberia: not even half a loaf’, in West Africa, 14 October 1985, p. 2139.

Page 331 note 2 Umaru Dikko, a Minister in the Shagari Government, who is accused of having embezzled and taken out of the country millions of Naira, was the target of a gangster-like attempt to smuggle him out of Engalnd. The attempt failed in extremis when he was discovered unconscious in a crate to be loaded on a Nigerian Airways plane.

Page 332 note 1 See Wolfson, Adam, ‘Expand the Crusade to All Africa’, in The Washington Post, 13 09 1985, pp. DI–3. He is right: political repression should be condemned as vigorously in black-ruled régimes as it is in the white minority Republic of South Africa.Google Scholar

Page 332 note 2 Statement made by Claude Ake at the end of a seminar held at the Wilson Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C., 6 August 1985.

Page 333 note 1 Curr, Robert L. Jr, ‘BHN and the African State’, in Ergas, (ed.), op.cit.Google Scholar