AFRICA POLITCS: Chapt.Seven

POLITICAL OUTCOME

Among the various competing interpretations of the content, context and dynamics of political change in Africa, by far the most influential is the so-called new political economy/public choice approach which incorporates different shades of theories of patrimonialism/neo-patrimonialism, state criminalisation and post-colony (Bates,1981; Jackson & Roseburg,1983; Callaghy, 1984; Kasfir, 1984;Young & Turner, 1985; Ergas, 1987; Chabal, 1988; Rothchild & Chazan, 1988; Carter Centre, 1989a, 1989b; Bayart, 1993; Bratton & van der Walle, 1994; Reno, 1995; Bayart et alii, 1999; Mbembe, 1992a, 1992b). Depending on the particular angle or entry point which they choose, scholars working within his broad approach have tended to pitch themselves into an interpretative frame that is either optimistic or pessimistic about the patterns of politics in Africa, their problems and prospects.

The literature demonstrates a wide spectrum of opinion but the main issues that have emerged to constitute the dominant approach to interpreting African politics and the changes taking place within it can be illustrated with the discussion that has taken place on the socio-economic context of political change and the nature of civil society. With regard to the socio-economic context of political change, by far the most dominant rspective is that rent-seeking behavioral patterns among political actors and neo-patrimonial pressures produced the decline in African economies, obstructed the full realization of the goals of IMF/World Bank structural adjustment programmes, nurtures a culture of informality/conviviality, and prevents the emergence of reform-minded coalitions able to initiate and govern far-reaching change in the form of economic and political liberalization.

For some of the contributors to the development of this perspective, rent-seeking is integral to the very nature of African culture and/or society while for others, the political/policy elite are the self-conscious producers of niches of opportunity which they exploit. Some of the rent-seeking niches are also held to arise from the nature of African economies which have been structured within a state-interventionist model of development that allocates an important role to the exercise of policy discretion, facilitates oligopolistic practices, and discourages the emergence of market-driven pricing regimes. As to the neo-patromonialist pressures that are considered to be a pervasive, all -encompassing feature of African polities, some of the contributors to the development of this perspective locate the pressures at the level of African society itself while others place the emphasis on the internal workings of the state system.

The society-centric approach, best illustrated by Bayart's notion of the politics of the belly, points to practices and norms in African society that prevent the embrace and sustained application of «rational» policy choices capable of promoting economic development and political liberalization. By contrast, the state-centric approach locates the problem of neo-patrimonialism not in the society but in the state itself, pointing to the ways in which the state constitutes a burden on society on account of the politics of predation which it nurtures. In this connection, various theses of the shadow state or the state within the state have been advanced. Neo-patromonialist pressures are also fueled by the insatiable craving of the power elite for popular legitimacy.

For this reason, layers and networks of patron-clientelism pervade the entire socio-economic and political system.

Irrespective of the particular point of view taken by different authors on the sources of rent-seeking and neo-patrimonialism, there is widespread agreement among them that frica's economic development and political transition from authoritarian rule has been stymied and obstructed. The intellectual roots of Afro-pessimism can be traced to this perspective in so far as it represents a frame which, in treating rent-seeking behaviors, neo-patrimonialist practices, and post-colony syndromes as ubiquitous and all-pervasive, almost sees no way out of the «dead end» to African development. For, if existing policy frames have failed because of the adverse consequences of the logic of rent-seeking, the economy of affection, the politics of the post-colony, and neo-patrimonialism, reform efforts have also foundered for the same reasons. It was partly in a bid to overcome the pessimism thatis the logical outcome of this perspective that Chabal and Daloz (1999) have suggested that the way things are in Africa as captured in the critique of the rent-seeking/neo-patrimonialist school should be accepted as the way Africa really works - in contradistinction to the orderliness in-built into Western state-society relations and structures. Although their intervention was presented as a departure from a euro-centric reading of Africa at work, it did not in fact succeed in going beyond the euro-centrism that was the object of their criticism and in the end, their prognosis was also overwhelmed by a sense of pessimism.

For those who, while still working within the rent-seeking/neo-patrimonialist framework, seek sources of hope and optimism, they have had to turn to the an earlier generation of writings which saw in the orthodox economic reform efforts promoted by the IMF and the World Bank, the possibility of the emergence of new patterns of politics in Africathat are allegedly more promoting of rational economic development and political renewal (Chazan, 1982, 1983; Diamond, 1994; Bates, 1981; Nelson, 1990). The arguments that have been marshalled in this regard are varied but they frequently include the expectation that economic structural adjustment will produce or is producing a new bourgeoisie that is rooted in production and disciplined in the ways of the market as to be in a position to mid-wife a genuine democratic transition in Africa. Others have suggested that the market reform process has empowered a new generation of technocrats who have become important players not only with regard to the struggle for the rational governance of economies but also the restructuring of the parameters of politics.

Furthermore, it has been suggested that the expectation that economic reforms will alter the structure of incentives in favor of rural Africa will not only increase the political weight of the rural populace in the national power equation of African countries but also throw-up new grassroots players who can serve as the voice of the people. Attention has also been played to the changing patterns of interest group politics, especially the contestation between so-called pro-reform (that is pro-market reform) groups anti reform coalitions (often assumed to be people fully immersed in the rent-seeking/neo-patrimonialist logic of the post-colony), and the new patterns of politics which they are producing in the quest for rational economic development and political liberalization.