Download AFRICA`S RESPONSE TO THE SECOND SCRAMBLE

AFRICA’S RESPONSE TO THE
SECOND SCRAMBLE
CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES
A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
 First Scramble: forced modernization; sporadic resistance
but African societies and communities at “receiving end”
 Decolonization: resistance within an enforced paradigm;
fighting for independence using liberal-democratic norms;
outcome amounts to an “away game” victory; Africa no
longer merely an object but a subject
 Post-independence development in the 1960s and 1970s:
euphoric agency challenging historical experience; going
back to African roots; development a ”zero-sum” game
 Second Scramble: Africa engages the world; accepts history;
treats development as ”positive-sum”game
DEVELOPMENT AND DEMOCRACY
 What comes first?
 Modernization and underdevelopment theory suggested a
certain level of development is necessary for democracy (cf.
Seymour Martin Lipset 1960)
 Since the 1990s the relationship has been reversed:
democracy (or “good governance”) is treated as precondition
for development
 How compatible are they?
 Development state requires a definite degree of autocratic
control that goes against democratic values, incl human rights
(cf Ethiopia and Rwanda)
TRADE VERSUS PRODUCTION
 Africa’s impressive economic growth record based more on
trade than on production; few signs of a social transformation
 Good governance agenda limited to improving conditions for
market-based actors but ignoring conditions that enhance
local production
 Africa has a middle class larger than India’s; it has 100,000
persons with US$1 million to invest; the “Entrepreneur of
the Year” for 2012 is a Kenyan – James Mwangi – the CEO of
Equity Bank with 70% of all bank accounts in the country
 Importance of diversifying middle class beyond public sector
and move politics away from ethnicity toward social class
INFRASTRUCTURES VS SERVICES
 Western donors have emphasized social development, incl.
education and health under the auspices of the MDGs
without consideration of political and economic effects
 China, other BRIC countries and African governments
believe infrastructural investments are more important; rapid
urbanization calls for it in a dramatic way; public sector does
not match expansion of private sector investments
 Infrastructural investments come with two challenges: (1)
easiness of corruption and (2) expanded maintenance
requirements
BLUEPRINTS VS LOCAL SOLUTIONS
 Western donors have relied on formal models – blueprints –
that are viewed as universally applicable; investors, whether
from China or other countries tend to adopt the same
approach
 Civil society organizations and academics, however, question
the blueprint approach and argue for “going with the grain”,
i.e. building on what already exists on the ground
 With a growing role for women in politics as well as
economics, circumstances are more congenial today for
harnessing local resources, including human, for
development
A NEW POLITICAL CULTURE?
 Africa’s Achilles Heel may be its political culture, notably the
lack or respect for the public realm. Community and private
needs and interest precede those of the civic public realm (cf
Ekeh 1975)
 Introduction of competitive elections has not changed its
neo-patrimonial or clientelist politics although political party
systems are beginning to stabilize in many countries
 Popular demand for constitutional reform is a new
phenomenon of significance in many countries and new ways
of holding public officials accountable are emerging
AFRICA – ONE OR MANY?
 Africans hold on to belief that unity is strength; African
Union still symbolically important in spite of lack of real
successes
 Africans favor regional integration as a way of strengthening
unity
 Practical economic integration, however, tends to create
inequalities among countries and more political tensions (cf
East African Community)
 With more and more interest from outside actors, unification
will be weakened and continent-wide organizations more and
more difficult to sustain
WHAT TIME HORIZON?
 Analysis of African conditions have shifted between “Afro-
optimism” and “Afro-pessimism”; donors having sinned more
often on the positive side; academics on the other side
 With more evidence of African agency there is also greater
chance that judgments will become more realistic and fair
 Development takes time, so does institutionalizing
democracy; history shows that there are “no shortcuts to
progress”
 So when we analyze Africa it is necessary to recognize that
the glass is as often “half-full” as it is “half-empty”