This is a general issue which challenges a number of assumptions about contemporary Africa, including Africa in relationship to imperialism (Zubairu Wai), African governance (Felix Conteh), the nature of the African state (Filip Reyntjens), international regimes, accumulation, dependence and the apparel industry in Africa. Other issues raised include African resources and the prospects for development (Mamadou Bah), neoliberalism and politics in Sudan (Laura Mann), mobile phones in the careers of Ghanaian market women (Jenna Burrell), developmental statehood and structural formation in Nigeria (Eka Ikpe), and finally an event that changed the course of politics in Angola (Saul).
In recent months, Africa has once again seized the international headlines with the abduction of 300 Nigerian girls from their school in Chibok, near Maiduguri in the northeast of that country by members of the terrorist group Boko Haram, who demand an Islamic state in Nigeria and are against educating girls and young women. This group, which has terrorised various communities in northern Nigeria (see Zack-Williams 2013), was demanding direct negotiations with the Nigerian government, with the threat that should negotiations fail, the girls will be sold into slavery. The failure of the Nigerian government to respond promptly to the kidnapping brought a huge domestic and international outcry, forcing the Nigerian government to abandon its long-standing être fier de of non-foreign involvement in the country's domestic security issues. Support came from traditional sources such as the UK, USA, and from new allies such as Australia, whose special forces were put on alert ready to help if required. Others offering support include Israel and China, and France, whose forces (across the border in Cameroon) once posed a counterbalance to the Nigerian armed forces in the border dispute with Cameroon over the oil-rich Bakassi Peninsula. The uproar following the kidnap led to greater cooperation on border security between Nigeria and her francophone neighbours Niger, Chad and Cameroon. One wonders if Nigeria is now to be drawn (as Mali and Somalia) into the new anti-terrorism strategy of the United States, which was announced recently by President Barack Obama, of fighting terrorism through proxies. The New York Times noted on 30 May that (with a US$5 billion war chest) the US president is seeking ‘to underscore a shift in counterterrorism strategy – away from Al Qaeda strongholds in and near those countries – American forces had changed their tactics in combating Al Qaeda and its affiliates, relying more on allied or indigenous troops with a limited American combat role’ (New York Times 2014). The New York Times, quoting US General David M. Rodriguez, noted that while US Navy SEAL and Army Delta Force commandos will still carry out raids against the most prized targets, ‘Our basic premise is that it's Africans who are best able to address African challenges' (Ibid.).
The day before this new security policy was announced, the Financial Times (2014) carried the headline: ‘US prepares investment push into Africa’. According to the Financial Times (FT), ‘the US is planning a trade and investment offensive to drum up business opportunities for American companies in Africa after years of rapid expansion throughout the continent by China and other emerging countries.’ It noted that US investment in Africa has fallen in comparison to that of China and other emerging nations such as Brazil, Turkey, India and Malaysia in the decade that witnessed US forces' engagement in the Middle East, and a period when ties with Asia were being strengthened. In short, Africa had witnessed a mild form of ‘benign economic neglect’, as the US concentrated its efforts in developing economic relations with Asia and Mexico. According to the FT, senior trade and economic officials have been despatched to the region for talks on ‘ways to strengthen the presence of US companies in African markets'. Though late in joining the ‘new scramble for Africa’, the US authorities yet believe that ‘there is clearly a sense of opportunity in Africa and the US government is embracing that’ (Ibid.). Furthermore, ‘we see Africa as a real source of opportunities', (Ibid.). To pave the way for the push, business forums and meetings with leading African CEOs are being organised to strengthen trade and financial ties to ensure that the value of US–Africa trade surpasses last year's US$110 billion, compared to the US$200 billion value of China–Africa trade for the same period. Clearly, this renewed interest in Africa offers new opportunities for training a modern workforce, renewing and developing infrastructure and increasing revenue for the state to embark on policies of replenishing the physical and social infrastructure. To achieve these goals, the state will have to respond to the legitimate aspiration of its people by making a volte-face from the authoritarian rule and corruption that have characterised recent developments.
Articles in this issue
The lead article by Zubairu Wai is an insightful critique of humanitarian interventionism, by now a major feature of life in many countries in Africa. For him, both Duffield (2001) and Hardt and Negri (2000) represent this new paradigm. He warns that the increasing and frequent ‘humanitarian intervention’ in Africa, which seeks to legitimate ‘itself as a noble humanitarian action to protect defenceless civilians under the threat of massacre by their own government’ is a subterfuge, as it ‘soon revealed itself as a violent interventionist trope driven by larger geopolitical, economic and ideological impulses'. In analysing the demise of the late Libyan dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, Wai wonders whether his fate was linked to his strong opposition to AFRICOM (the US Africa Command), as ‘post-Gaddafi Libya was the first state on the continent to openly express interest in hosting AFRICOM's headquarters.’ Furthermore, Gaddafi's departure also provided space for the US and its allies ‘to deal with anxieties that the Arab Spring was causing for Western, especially US, hegemony in the Arab world’. He draws attention to similar interventions in Mali, Central African Republic, Côte d'Ivoire, Somalia, Sierra Leone and Liberia, under the pretext of protecting human rights and promoting democracy. Wai dismisses the interventionist thesis of Duffield, who argued that because of the conflicts of the 1990s and the perceived threat to global peace and security, the ‘liberal peace’ was imposed upon troubled areas in the South to prevent or end political unrest, civil war and armed conflicts. According to Duffield, the underlying assumption on the part of the humanitarian interventionists is that these cataclysmic conditions were the product of underdevelopment, and what was required was a new global politics of developmentalism, of which humanitarian intervention or ‘shared system of moral responsibility’ (Duffield 2001, 260), together with the altruistic political project ‘liberal peace’, will form the core. Wai argues that Duffield's caricature of the contemporary world order dovetails with that of Hardt and Negri, who called for the transition of global power from the nation-state to one founded on the structural irrelevance of the nation-state. For Hardt and Negri, the conduit for this new world order is not imperialism, but ‘empire’, which has been effective in regulating global relations since the end of the Cold War. Wai's criticism of these three writers stems from what he sees as ‘the problematic ways they have interpreted that [world] order, the power which produces it, the system of domination it makes possible, and the logic that undergirds the ethos of its practice’. For him, these efforts are ideologies, not science. Thus, he warns:
Coming from the dominant and dominating milieus, their interpretations betray their positionality and privilege of location that is firmly ensconced in the traditions of their ethnos. Moreover, this partially prevents them from seeing the form of power that the current liberal world order is: a violent and intrusive imperialist power that hides its will to domination in tropes of altruism and facile concerns over human rights. (Wai 2014, in this volume)
Wai rejects what he calls the authors' problematic conception of imperialism, based on territorial acquisition, whilst failing to recognise the salient features of imperialism: dynamic, ideational, and a system of domination. In his view, what is theorised as Empire and the liberal peace is indeed ‘a neo-imperialist posture potentiated by a Western will to power and domination (Wai 2014, in this volume).
Mamadou Bah's contribution presents a challenge to the resource curse thesis. He observes that the argument that civil wars and other armed challenges to the state in West Africa, which identifies abundant natural resources and extreme poverty as significant trigger of violent civil conflicts, is misplaced and cannot explicate the Guinean experience. He points out that despite the presence of this seemingly toxic combination in Guinea, yet ‘the state has managed to avoid large-scale civil violence.’ The question he seeks to answer is why this lethal cocktail has not triggered widespread violence in Guinea. In his view, measures introduced by the Guinean authorities and their international partners helped to avoid the onset of widespread violence while at the same time the mass of the Guinean population was in abject poverty. Bah identifies two strands in the resource curse debate: the rebel-centric and the state-centric approaches.
The former emphasises the opportunities these resources provide for rebels to trigger off large-scale armed challenge; the latter refers to how abundant natural resources lead to state weakness, leading to violent contestation for territories and state control. Largely because of its ultra-quantitative (empiricist) approach, the model has failed to explain why some regions have not descended into civil war and armed conflict despite the toxicity of abundant natural resources and extreme poverty. For Bah, only a qualitative approach will provide explanations to the Guinea problematic, i.e., how Guinea managed to avoid civil war and armed conflicts. Among the factors that aided stability were the introduction of a code of investment, the banning of ‘private diamond mining’ linked to what could be called the ex-dictator Sheku Turay's ‘shadow state’, and the removal of diamond traders and their families and workers from the mining area. In short, unlike the scramble for diamonds in ‘the wild west’ of West Africa (i.e. the ‘free for all’ in Sierra Leone), in Guinea corporate mining was privileged. Similar corporate organisation prevailed in other sectors, such as the mining of bauxite, iron ore and other minerals. The chaos that accompanied mining in Sierra Leone was the product of the informalisation of both mining activities and the state apparatus by the ruling All Peoples Congress (Zack-Williams 1995). Furthermore, Bah argues that the abundance of minerals enabled the country to maintain a foreign policy compatible with internal stability; resist IMF-/World Bank-inspired austerity measures; and the regime was able to adopt selective redistribution mechanism acceptable to most Guineans and international partners, thus mitigating any threat to state security. For Bah, regardless of the leadership, in order to strengthen domestic stability, there was strong resistance to Structural Adjustment Programmes, unlike the capitulation to the dictates of the Fund and Bank by the Momoh regime in Sierra Leone after 1984 (Zack-Williams 1999). As Bah observes: ‘the main preoccupation of the [Guinean] government was making sure that economic reforms did not engender excessive discontent in urban areas … . [In addition] the regime adopted the dual strategy of delaying and/or diluting reforms.’ This considerate reaction of the Guinean ruling class was premised on two features of society. First, ‘the existence of a centralised rent-seeking and selective redistribution system’, through which resources were channelled to a small circle of elites, who also prospered from mineral revenues. Second, there was a high level of Guinean ownership and private investment in industry and the import–export sector. The contrast with neighbouring Sierra Leone and Liberia could not be more stacked, where manufacturing, mining and commerce were dominated by Lebanese capital (Zack-Williams 1995).
Felix Conteh's article draws attention to some of the pitfalls in local governance in post-civil war Sierra Leone, where the return to democratic governance has pitched the democratically elected District Councillors against the traditional chiefs, and the ascendancy of neoliberalism has further intensified the tension between the chiefs and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Conteh examines the tensions between chiefs and NGOs in alternative dispute resolution mechanisms. In the eyes of the chiefs, these new interlopers were undercutting their powers and hence livelihood, by getting embroiled in judicial disputes, once the prerogative of chiefs and an important source of accumulation. Indeed, misuse of their power by chiefs was an important causal factor in the civil war, which lasted from 1991 to 2002 (Zack-Williams 2012). Conteh argues that although chieftaincy remains relevant as a mechanism of local governance, yet it continues to be a contentious institution, as trust in this institution was destroyed, and societal values and norms were adversely affected by disputes over land and inter and intra-ethnic disputes. He examines the activities of two local NGOs in the Quest for Peace project by analysing the roles of chiefs, community practice volunteers and NGOs. Conteh observes that many of the Paramount Chiefs elected in the post-civil war era were young and highly educated, and that some had made their fortune either locally or abroad and so did not view the Quest for Peace as a threat to their resources. However, the sub-chiefs saw the project as a ‘direct threat to their revenue base’; the altruism of the NGOs was limited to the traditional role in education and health, and Conteh points to the fact that at least two NGOs involved in implementing the Quest for Peace resorted to unethical strategy, including false and unrealistic promises to the communities.
Filip Reyntjens' article is a case study of the Great Lakes region, more specifically a ‘micro-field’ study of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a country that has experienced continuous instability over the last 20 years. He points out that due to state weakness, border porosity, interventions of non-state armed groups and neighbouring governments' armies, as well as private entrepreneurs, the state does not empirically execute essential state functions, not least the exercise of territorial control. The article utilises four conceptual frameworks: fragile state, the greed versus grievance debate, a critique of the Weberian and Tillyan views of the modern state, in particular the monopoly control of the legitimate use of violence and the presence of a rational bureaucratic authority, and, finally, modern borderline studies. The article is organised around five themes: regulatory activities, including taxation, which officials and non-officials alike within the territory and the informal borderline trade collect; the straddling of public and private spheres; the struggles for control; drawing attention to the transnational nature of activities and intense integration; and evidence of non-state groups acting as proxies for states. In line with the critique of orthodoxy, which is what binds together the contributions in this issue, Reyntjens questions the ‘Tillyan approach’, which perceives criminal activities and what he calls ‘“forms of hybrid governance” as potential processes of state formation’. Pointing to the common link between this approach and the greed vs grievance debate, he concludes that ‘the economisation of conflict tends to give prominence to the greed motive.’ The author notes that there have been instances of grievance in the Great Lakes region, particularly in cases of ethnic resentment (Hutu–Tutsi, autochthonous groups and others), but that in his view ‘the economisation of conflict gave prominence to the greed motive, as the main driving force became the gaining of benefit from exploitation of mineral and other resources.’ Drawing attention to various modes of accumulation – official, unofficial, military, rebels – he observed that ‘common to the setting up of regulatory frames is that even those possessing a monopoly of armed force cannot impose them unilaterally. Rather, norms are the result of negotiations between several players whose weight differs from one local situation to another.’
Eka Ikpe's contribution is a reflection on the enhanced developmental state paradigm, which – pace advocates of neoliberalism in Africa – brought economic transformation to the East Asian states. Central to this paradigm is the dynamic role of the state in utilising development planning to expedite intersectoral resource transfers for structural transformation. In line with the emphasis on critical engagement, Ikpe has posed a challenge to the anti-dirigisme embedded in neoliberalism. Drawing from the work of Ihonbvere and Schatz, Ikpe reminds readers that the developmental state option was the product of the ‘limited access to capital of the emerging (indigenous) private sector’, which impelled the state into an extensive indigenisation policy. Furthermore, despite the transfer of resources between agricultural and oil sectors, the performance of the former was poor: agricultural export declined from 36% in 1970 to just 4% in 1980, and the agricultural sectoral growth averaged a paltry 0·5% for the same period. He notes that support for agriculture was lopsided, with the lion's share going to support large-scale agriculture at the expense of small-scale producers, notwithstanding the latter's dominance in the sub-sector. Other problems include the failure to tailor agricultural policies to local needs, and the colonially instituted Marketing Boards, which were transformed into a mechanism for extracting surplus from the rural population.
Laura Mann's article focuses on the impact of Islamist policies on state–society relations in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. Using the concept of wasta, or personal intermediation (by one who is a well-respected and trusted member of the community), she contends that economic liberalisation and higher education expansion weakened sectarian control over the economy by trading the pre-existing institutional system of privilege with a more decentralised, private and transnational structure. She points out that Islamists not only utilised military power to capture the state, but also long-term economic and ideological power to reconstitute state–society relations. Furthermore, the strengthening of wasta in the labour market, according to Mann, stems from Islamist policies that have sought to overcome sectarian political control. She questions whether these policies present opportunities for long-term political transformation. The successful implementation of this policy has resulted in a ‘“hyperinflation” of qualifications and dissolution of trust between strangers and weak ties'. While the system was exclusive, it was underpinned by meritocratic reasoning at the centre: in other words, those who received the highest education received the best jobs, thus providing the judicious foundation necessary for modern economic development as well as fostering trust between managers and graduates. By contrast, governance in the periphery developed its own logic. Mann points out also that ‘the education revolution’ enabled the regime to weaken political opposition, while extending ‘an ideological education to large numbers of youth’. Trade unions became weakened through banning or being amalgamated into single unions. Other features of neoliberalism employed include privatisation, which allowed the Islamist to avoid responsibilities for state assets.
Jenna Burrell's contribution on mobile phones in the career of Ghanaian market women seeks to develop a model of the mobile phone in socio-economic development by exploring its uptake and adaptation among Ghanaian market women. She notes that at the time of her field trip mobile phones had become ‘valued tools supporting their market activities'. By being independent of the inefficient and often non-functioning landline network, the mobile phone has helped to reduce information asymmetries, thus increasing market efficiency by becoming a catalyst of individualistic capitalistic competition in the market, often leading to lower prices, which could be passed on to customers. According to Burrell, three broad and distinctive categories of practice emerged to aid organisation of time and space by means of mobile phones: those utilising their phones ‘to manage transactions and one-to-one commercial relationships', thus ‘enlivening trade networks'; those concerned with ‘professional identity, group affiliation and marketplace governance’ using their phones in ‘enhancing affiliative activities'; and, when use and non-use underline generational differences and questions of legacy, ‘networking towards an exit’, where some ‘envisioned the future of their families outside of this laborious [market trading] work’. Mobile phone has helped traders to avoid wasted trips, saving time and money.
The article by Moses Kindiki examines the relationship between regime and ‘dependency theories'. Its contention is that international regimes primarily serve the interests of metropolitan capitalism, in order to maintain dependency. With examples drawn from the apparel industry in Africa, the article seeks to highlight ‘both the dependency and struggle in international regimes that mainstream regime theory masks'. It draws attention to the agency role of developed capitalist states in promoting dependency and the struggle of the African state with dependency. It identifies three main international regimes in the industry: the structural regime on production and trade; international regime in the apparel industry in sub- Saharan Africa; finally, the US African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). A central theme to Kindiki's argument is that although structures such as GATT/WTO, EU preferential trade agreements and AGOA ‘operate as internal commons of the core participants, their operation is quite different with respect to the more peripheral countries', and they act as an instrument to dominate the system by the core. The system creates its own instruments for domination, rather than allowing the law of comparative advantage to work unimpeded. As such, Kindiki argues that they are regimes only to the extent that they act to articulate and deliver the agreed collective interests of the core countries. This, it is argued is patent in the design and operations of the AGOA. The article ends with a caveat that in its struggle to implant industry, Africa will have to respond with much more shrewdness and promptness to the exigencies of international political economy than that alluded to by the dependencia.
The final article, ‘“When freedom died” in Angola: Alves and after’, by John Saul is a fascinating piece of work that forces a rethink of the momentous events of 27 May 1977 in Angola. It is an important contribution to the renewed debate concerning these events, which constitute a vital date in Angolan history. The ‘coup attempt’ and its aftermath in many respects set the pattern of repressive politics and human rights violations that have continued ever since. The paper by Saul maintains an open-minded but penetrating analytical stance where the evidence is still unclear. It certainly rethinks the existing (English-language) literature, some of which appeared in ROAPE in the years 1978–1980. It also argues well for a fresh understanding, drawing on publications in Portuguese and recent work in English, that is, on a range of new empirical material and analysis that was unavailable when those earlier pieces were published in ROAPE. As such, it is arguably an important corrective to earlier pieces that relied heavily on official Angolan sources.
The first briefing in this issue, by Herman Wasserman and Jacinta Maweu, ‘The freedom to be silent? Market pressures on journalistic normative ideals at the Nation Media Group in Kenya’, is an empirical study of the pressures journalists endure in Kenya because of what the author calls the ‘financialisation’ or ‘corporatisation’ of the media. The study draws attention to the impact of interlocking directorship, owners' and shareholders' interests on journalistic freedom in Kenya as they seek to carry out their work. Whilst government censorship has reduced, the era of liberalisation has witnessed the rise of censorship through corporate influence. This is partly due to the increased corporate monopolies through horizontal integration, resulting in a rise in cross-media ownership. The increasing interconnected boards of directors (in other non-media corporations), strategic alliances, joint ventures (many of whom double up as other advertisers) or merchandising agreements have led to calls to ‘protect the professional autonomy of journalists to pursue the ideal role of the media in society; to promote public interest’.
In the first of two briefings on the May 2014 elections in South Africa, Martin Plaut draws attention to a decline in ANC votes nationally, and in particular in Gauteng. He argues that whilst the conduct of the elections was nowhere as unfair as in some other African countries, yet there is no justification for the conclusion by the Southern African Development Community Observation Mission that the election was almost unblemished, as it was ‘peaceful, free, transparent and credible, reflecting the will of the people of South Africa’. In challenging this conclusion, Plaut goes on to analyse how the African National Congress (ANC) utilised the power of incumbency to coax a disenchanted electorate to keep it in power. Prolonged incumbency has provided the ANC with vast spending power through ‘its highly effective investment arm, Chancellor House’ which, Plaut argues, ‘channels funds into the party from government contracts’.
Plaut points out that the relationship with the unions has been long and cordial, and although some unions and their membership may have deserted the ANC, yet the relationship remains strong, allowing the ANC ‘a much higher rate of direct contact with the public than any other party’, thus aiding its electoral success. Quoting from a Mail & Guardian editorial, he writes of the ANC possessing ‘the goodies bag’ and that the party has no qualms in doling out ‘taxpayer funded lollipops to keep the kiddies happily distracted’. He accuses the ANC of using state resources in promoting the direct interests of the party, drawing on many sources to show that the ANC and its officials have access to state assets which they use and abuse to the benefit of the organisation, to promote its image and interests. The officials of the organisation are accused of displaying ruthless disregard for the probity of office – he cites, for example, the Democratic Alliance’s (DA’s) accusation that the party ‘Fetsa Tlala’ (End Hunger) T-shirts were produced and advertised on billboards in Gauteng with public resources. Plaut argues that, like the ancien régime, the ANC utilises the state broadcaster, the South African Broadcasting Corporation, as a tool of propaganda and, finally, notes that the SADC Observation Mission reported some violence during the May 2014 elections. These are all factors which, though cumulatively they help to keep the ANC in power, yet call into question South African democracy.
Henning Melber, in his briefing on the 2014 South African general elections, draws attention to the unpopularity of the ANC and its leader, President Jacob Zuma, as the country went to the polls. Zuma is described as ‘the most unpopular president in democratic South Africa’ and, pointing to manoeuvrings of opposition forces, Melber tries to locate the different strategies they pursued to unhinge disenchanted ANC supporters from the party. Disenchanted ANC supporters were urged to vote tactically for the DA (such was the call of the shack-dwellers’ movement), whilst the Unemployed People’s Movement asked its supporters to vote for the smaller parties. There were 13 parties out of the 29 contesting the elections that managed to gain one or more seats in parliament; 8 of these parties received fewer votes than those spoilt. Despite the unpopularity of the ANC, Melber identified only a minor shift in the balance of power at the provincial level, promising a battleground for the future.
The DA, which came second with less than 23% of the popular vote, failed to supplant the ANC as the provincial government in Gauteng, but increased its vote by almost half, to 30%. In KwaZulu-Natal, the DA became the official opposition, whilst consolidating its position in the Western Cape with 56% of the votes. In Melber’s view, the elections were not another rubber-stamping exercise. He cautions the ruling party against complacency, as he pointed to signs of shifting ground: ‘while the ANC appeared confident of having survived the range of scandals and in-fights unharmed, it has no reasons for complacency. The dissenting voices from the grassroots were louder and more radical than ever before.’ Melber envisions the emergence of a new left party drawing on the old tripartite alliance of the African People’s Congress, the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions.