Briefings and Debates Editor, Review of African Political Economy
The following set of papers on an emerging discursive trend on linking commerce with do-gooding for ‘Africa’ seems to me to be of striking originality. The commerce/aid discourse involves a new take on ‘corporate social responsibility’ among other aspects of corporate self-presentation. The authors discuss different features and implications of this trend and so overall they establish a new area of debate for African scholars.
To mention just some of the implications, Fantu Cheru's piece argues inter alia that development aid funded by taxpayers may soon become a thing of the past. Readers may wish to engage with such lines of reasoning by, for example, claiming that the well-known ‘securitisation of development’ funded by governments is still alive and well in places like Afghanistan and Libya. It could be argued that such militarisation of Africa is a response by Europe and the USA to a declining relative importance in their economic power. Alternatively, the emphasis in various papers on consumerism may be seen by some as being under possible threat as aggregate demand in developed countries declines sharply in the face of austerity measures imposed under the hegemony of neoliberal policies. Yet I am not trying to pick holes in the arguments presented: quite the contrary. I am merely attempting to indicate that new types of analyses, with a new research agenda suggested at the end, could easily provoke a response that simply reasserts existing ways of thinking.
Rather than that, I would hope that this Debate stimulates further contributions, although of course criticism is never ruled out as one form of improving the quality of analysis. Consequently, this preface is an invitation to make further contributions on the same broad topic. New horizons are opening as Africa and the global economy continue to change rapidly.