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The Politics of Economic Decline in Sierra Leone

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

David Fashole Luke  and
Stephen P. Riley
David Fashole Luke
Affiliation:
Centre of African Studies, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Stephen P. Riley
Affiliation:
Department of International Relations and Politics, Staffordshire Polytechnic, Stoke-on-Trent
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Extract

The fact that Sierra Leone is one of Africa's little-known states is an acknowledgement of its marginalisation and reversal of fortunes since independence from Britain in 1961. But this observation is also a reminder that under colonial rule, Sierra Leone had received considerable notoriety for several reasons: an important naval base, commercial centre, and seaport; a hot-bed of political agitation and perennial challenge to British authority; and a centre of education – the so-called ‘Athens of West Africa’.1 In more recent times, however, Sierra Leone jas not caught the attention of international commentators and the world press. It has not achieved the strategic or international political significance of such major African states as Algeria, Côte d'Ivoire, Egypt, Nigeria, Zambia, or Zimbabwe. And looking back to the 1950s and 1960s, it was not led to independence by the charismatic persona of a Kwame Nkrumah, who hoped to achieve the rapid transformation of Ghana to a modern industrial economy and society, ot by a romantic like Julius Nyerere, who hoped to turn Tanzanian peasants into citizens of modern communes.

Type
Africana
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , March 1989 , pp. 133 - 141
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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References

Page 133 note 1 See Kilson, Martin, Political Change in a West African State (New York, 1965), ch. 1.Google Scholar

Page 133 note 2 Cf. Riley, Stephen P. and Parfitt, Trevor W., ‘Party or Masquerade? The All People's Congress of Sierra Leone’, in Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics (London), 25, 2, 1987, pp. 161–79,Google Scholar and Luke, David Fashole, ‘Continuity in Sierra Leone: from Stevens to Momoh’, in Third World Quarterly (London), 10, 1, 01 1988, pp. 67–78.Google Scholar

Page 133 note 3 See The Times (London), 31 05 1988;Google ScholarWest Africa (London), 6 06 1988;Google ScholarWe Yone (Freetown), 6 06 1988;Google Scholar and Weekend Spark (Freetown), 10 06 1988.Google Scholar

Page 134 note 1 Cartwright, John R., Politics in Sierra Leone, 1947–67 (Toronto, 1970),CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Political Leadership in Sierra Leone (London, 1978);Google ScholarClapham, Christopher, Liberia and Sierra Leone: an essay in comparative politics (Cambridge, 1976).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Page 134 note 2 This notion is discussed in Sandbrook, Richard with Barker, Judith, The Politics of Africa's Economic Stagnation (Cambridge, 1985), ch. 5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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Page 134 note 4 See the chapters on social policies in Luke, Davi. Fashole and Riley, Stephen P. (eds.), Economic Decline and Prospects for Adjustment in Africa: the case of Sierra Leone (Boulder and London, forthcoming).Google Scholar

Page 135 note 1 See, for example, Young, Crawford, Ideology and Development in Africa (New Haven and London, 1982), and Sandbrook with Barker, op. cit.Google Scholar

Page 135 note 2 Cf. Luke and Riley (eds.), op. cit.

Page 135 note 3 Riley, Stephen P., ‘Sierra Leone Politics: some recent assessments’, in Africa (Manchester), 52, 1982, pp. 106–9.Google Scholar

Page 135 note 4 Luke, David Fashole, Labour and Parastatal Politics in Sierra Leone: a study of African working-class ambivalence (Lanham, New York, and London, 1984).Google Scholar

Page 135 note 5 See Decalo, Samuel, ‘African Personal Dictatorships’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), 23, 2 06 1985, pp. 209–37.Google Scholar

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Page 136 note 1 Cf. Longhurst, Richard, Kamara, Samura, and Mensurah, Joseph, ‘Structural Adjustment and Vulnerable Groups in Sierra Leone’, in IDS Bulletin (Brighton), 19, 1, 01 1988, pp. 25–30,Google Scholar and Kamara, Samura et al. , ‘The Genesis of Macroeconomic Problems’, in Luke, and Riley, (eds.), op. cit.Google Scholar

Page 137 note 1 Stevens, Siaka, What Life has Taught Me: the autobiography of His Excellency Dr. Siaka Stevens, President of Sierra Leone (London, 1984), p. 414.Google Scholar

Page 137 note 2 World Bank, World Development Report, 1988 (Washington, D.C., 1988), pp. 222–87.Google Scholar

Page 137 note 3 ‘Business Profile: Jamil Said Mohammed’, in South: the third world magazine (London), 12 1982, p. 64,Google Scholar and, more generally, Hoogvelt, Ankie, ‘IMF Crime of Conditionality’, in Review of African Political Economy (Sheffield), 38, 1987, pp. 80–6.Google Scholar

Page 137 note 4 See, for example, van der Laan, Laurens, The Lebanese Traders in Sierra Leone (The Hague, 1975).Google Scholar

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Page 138 note 2 See West Africa, 30 March 1987, p. 645;Google Scholar also Overseas Development Council (of the United States), ‘should the IMF Withdraw from Africa?’, in Policy Focus (Washington, D.C.), 1, 1987, p. 6.Google Scholar

Page 139 note 1 Longhurst, Kamara, and Mensurah, loc. cit. p. 26.

Page 139 note 2 ibid.

Page 139 note 3 Cf. the discussion of structural adjustment and economic liberalisation in Parfitt, Trevor W. and Riley, Stephen P., The African Debt Crisis (London, 1989), pp. 30–47.Google Scholar

Page 139 note 4 ‘Sierra Leone: state of the nation’, in West Africa, 20 June 1988, p. 1115.

Page 141 note 1 The ‘Green Revolution’ agricultural programme started in 1986 is faltering, and was perhaps fundamentally misconceived. Cf. Richards, Paul, African Agricultural Revolution: ecology and food production in West Africa (London, 1985).Google Scholar

Page 141 note 2 Kamara et al., loc. cit. p. 12.