Africa's Economic Performance: Limitations of the Current Consensus

Sender, John

doi:10.1257/jep.13.3.89

Cited by 63 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 54 publications

(1 reference statement)

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“…First, politics was based more around personalities than classes; second, contestation often involved winner-take-all political competition; and third, the uncertain and fluid nature of clientelist factions The Concept, Causes and Consequences of Failed States generated unstable cabinet appointments and high turnover that in turn led to weak bureaucratic capacity to re-allocate resources in growth-enhancing ways. This is not to say that economic growth did not take place; in fact, sub-Saharan Africa achieved relatively robust rates of growth in the period 1940-1970(Sender, 1999. The importance of the colonial legacy had more to do with the viability and sustainability of the state over the longer run.…”

Section: How and Why Do States 'Fail'? The Contribution Of 'Functionamentioning

confidence: 99%

The Concept, Causes and Consequences of Failed States: A Critical Review of the Literature and Agenda for Research with Specific Reference to Sub-Saharan Africa

John

2009

Eur J Dev Res

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This article provides a critical review of recent literature that has attempted to define what a 'failed state' is and explains why such states emerge. It is argued that aggregate indices of 'failure' are misleading due to the wide variations of capacity across state functions within a polity. The focus on ranking states also distracts attention away from analyses concerning the dynamics of state capacity. Moreover, many of the definitions either compare reality to a Weberian ideal, or assume that violence is 'development in reverse', both of which are ahistorical and unhelpful as a guide to policy. The second part of the article assesses the contributions of functionalist, 'new war' and neo-Tillean approaches to explain state failure. The article finds that while these theories take concrete historical situations seriously, they have important theoretical and empirical shortcomings. Finally, the conclusion outlines an agenda for further research.Cet article offre un examen critique de la litte´rature re´cente cherchant a`de´finir ce qu'est un É tat de´faillant, ainsi que les raisons donnant lieu a`leur e´mergence. Il conside`re que les indicateurs agre´ge´s permettant d'e´tablir qu'un É tat est de´faillant sont tous trompeurs en raison de la grande variation qui peut exister au sein d'un meˆme É tat quant a`sa capacite´a`assurer ses diffe´rentes fonctions. Il est souligne´que les classements de´tournent l'attention des analyses portant sur la dynamique variable de la capacite´des É tats. Plusieurs approchent comparent, de plus, la re´alite´avec un ide´al weberien, ou bien supposent que la violence est une forme de de´veloppement ) a`l'envers *, ce qui constitue une pre´supposition anhistorique et inutile du point de vue de l'aide a`la de´cision. La deuxie`me partie de l'article se penche en particulier sur les contributions fonctionnalistes, du paradigme des ) nouvelles guerres *, ainsi que des approches base´es sur les the´ories de Charles Tilly. Bien que prenant en compte les re´alite´s historiques, ces diffe´rentes approches ont toutes des points faibles, tant the´oriques qu'empiriques, et la conclusion de l'article se base sur ces derniers afin d'e´laborer un agenda de recherche futur a`propos des É tats de´faillants.

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Section: How and Why Do States 'Fail'? The Contribution Of 'Functionamentioning

confidence: 99%

The Concept, Causes and Consequences of Failed States: A Critical Review of the Literature and Agenda for Research with Specific Reference to Sub-Saharan Africa

John

2009

Eur J Dev Res

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“…1945-ca. 1995, and the rise in school enrolments which was a fundamental achievement of the new independent governments (Sender, 1999).…”

Section: Path Dependence and Post-colonial Performancementioning

confidence: 99%

The ‘reversal of fortune’ thesis and the compression of history: Perspectives from African and comparative economic history

Austin

2008

J of Intl Development

240

153

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Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson have dramatically challenged the tendency of economists to confine their empirical search for the causes of economic growth to the recent past. They argue that the kind of institutions established by European colonialists, either protecting private property or extracting rents, resulted in the poorer parts of the pre-colonial world becoming some of the richest economies of today; while transforming some of the more prosperous parts of the non-European world of 1500 into the poorest economies today. This view has been further elaborated for Africa by Nunn, with reference to slave trading. Drawing on African and comparative economic historiography, the present paper endorses the importance of examining growth theories against long-term history: revealing relationships that recur because the situations are similar, as well as because of path dependence as such. But it also argues that the causal relationships involved are more differentiated than is recognised in AJR's formulations. By compressing different historical periods and paths, the 'reversal' thesis over-simplifies the causation. Relatively low labour productivity was a premise of the external slave trades; though the latter greatly reinforced the relative poverty of many Sub-Saharan economies. Again, it is important to distinguish settler and non-settler economies within colonial Africa itself. In the latter case it was in the interests of colonial regimes to support, rather than simply extract from, African economic enterprise. Finally, economic rent and economic growth have often been joint products, including in pre-colonial and colonial Africa; the kinds of institutions that favoured economic growth in certain historical contexts were not necessarily optimal for that purpose in others. AJR have done much to bring development economics and economic history together. The next step is a more flexible

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“…Many writers (Franz H andBoar G, 2011 andTabisa W, 2013) focused on internal features of African countries such as ethno-linguistic fractionation, state structures, economic marginalisation, and demography. In fact, Sender (1999) also opposed the views of many economists on their stand about Africa's growth and development. He argued major progress had occurred on poverty reduction, but they failed to address the relative position of Africa within the world system.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effects of Poverty Reduction Strategies on Artisanal Fishing in Ghana: The Case of Keta Municipality

Dzidza¹,

Jackson²,

Normanyo³

et al. 2017

JSD

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This paper assesses the level of poverty in Ghana after three decades of successive implementation of numerous poverty reduction strategies including Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) by various governments of Ghana. The Keta municipality in the Volta region, where artisanal fishing thrives, was chosen as a representative sample of the whole country. The authors identified eleven artisanal fishing communities in the selected area using systematic sampling. Data were collected on household consumption patterns. This process was used to determine the profile of poverty using the latest upper poverty line of Ghana and the Greer and Thorbecke (1984) poverty formula. Research findings show that the various poverty alleviation methods implemented over three decades by the Government of Ghana, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) significantly failed as they have not produced any meaningful effect on poverty reduction in the sample area. Finally, this paper offers further suggestions regarding how this poverty gap may be bridged using alternative methods.

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Africa's Economic Performance: Limitations of the Current Consensus

Cited by 63 publications

References 54 publications

The Concept, Causes and Consequences of Failed States: A Critical Review of the Literature and Agenda for Research with Specific Reference to Sub-Saharan Africa

The Concept, Causes and Consequences of Failed States: A Critical Review of the Literature and Agenda for Research with Specific Reference to Sub-Saharan Africa

The ‘reversal of fortune’ thesis and the compression of history: Perspectives from African and comparative economic history

The Effects of Poverty Reduction Strategies on Artisanal Fishing in Ghana: The Case of Keta Municipality

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