Transcript Slide 1

Findings from two
European-led research
programmes
Part 2: Getting the politics right for
economic transformation in Africa
David Booth, Africa Power and Politics,
ODI, London
Johns Hopkins – SAIS, Washington DC,
12 March 2012
www.institutions-africa.org
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Overview
 The problem 1: economic growth and economic transformation in
Africa
 The problem 2: what about the politics?
 What do we know about rent-seeking and transformation in
Africa?
 Conclusions
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The problem 1: Not just economic growth …
 Economic headlines of 2010: Africa on the move
 McKinsey report “Lions on the Move”: accelerating growth during 2000s;
not just a resource boom
 Steven Radelet CGA book: steady economic growth and democratisation
since mid-1990s in 17 “cheetah” countries
 Economic headlines of 2011: not just growth but …
Justin
Lin
K.Y.
Amoako
UN
ECA
 … economic transformation
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The challenge of economic transformation
 Structural change (diversification of production and exports)
 Productivity breakthroughs in smallholder agriculture (esp. Tracking
Development)
 Acquisition of skills and technological capabilities by firms +
anticipation of comparative advantages (especially Lin)
 And, therefore, an active state, to
 tackle major infrastructure obstacles (transport, power, water)
 free-up markets for inputs and outputs
 improve health, education and skills
 facilitate and force firms to grow and upgrade
 But …
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The problem 2: What about the politics?
 A 30-year conventional wisdom about Africa has ruled out successful
state interventionism:
 Inevitability of political corruption and managerial inefficiency – “rent
seeking”, “neopatrimonialism”
 “First get good governance” – so that states are accountable to citizens
 That means better public financial management, multi-party elections and
… democratic decentralization
 Global hype around the Arab Spring – renewal of public belief in
democratization as magic bullet
 The trouble is:
 Asian experience does not support the Good Governance orthodoxy or
popular faith in democracy as the solution to all problems …
 … nor does African experience
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What do we know about “rent seeking” and transformation
in Africa?
 In Africa as in Asia, the formula that seems to work
for transformation combines
 A mechanism enabling centralization of control of
economic rents and their deployment with a view to the
(relatively) long term
 Political protection for competent, socially embedded,
sector bureaucracies
 Recent theory tells us why this should be the case
 Historically, this “developmental patrimonialism” has
only happened under two particular conditions …
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Rarely, if ever, have developmental regimes emerged from
multi-party electoral competition … why?
 In history, elections and liberal-democratic
institutions have very different effects in different
socio-economic settings
 Until societies have substantial organizational
capacity, so that promises to deliver public goods are
realistic and credible …
 … it will always be cost effective to win elections with
bold gestures plus distribution of private rewards
(and punishments) to voters and clients
 The short-termism that elections generate is worse,
and more damaging for development, when
countries are divided into big ethnic blocs, and the
Constitution says “winner takes all”
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Conclusions
 Developmental patrimonialism is not a new “model”
 Questions about origins and durability
 In Africa, policies still weak on smallholder transformation
 The challenge is to make democracy safe for development:
 Ways of blunting competitive clientelism, short-termism and “winner takes
all”
 Is there a role for the international community in this? If we can be:
 Humble about our knowledge of “what works”
 Aware that in history all good things don’t go together
 Resistant to global bandwagons
 Engaged enough to undertake painstaking analysis of the political economy
of possible change, country by country
Thank you!
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Africa
power and
politics
Developmental regimes in Africa brings together
Tracking Development, led by the ASC & KITLV interinstitutes of Leiden University, Netherlands and Africa
Power and Politics, led by the Overseas Development
Institute, London. The project is supported by the
Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs
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