Africa's Stalled Development: International Causes and Cures

Abstract

David K. Leonard and Scott Strauss. Africa's Stalled Development: International Causes and Cures. Boulder, CoIo.: Lynne Rienner, 2003. Bibliography. Index. $42.00. Cloth. $17.95. Paper. Africa 's Stalled Development is an accessible and valuable contribution to the literature on Africa's troubled political economy. As the elaboration of a series of lectures first delivered by one of the authors, the book provides a concise summary of key debates in African politics: endemic poverty, administrative weakness, and violent ethnic conflict. Although the text is unlikely to redefine Africanists' understanding of African states and societies, the authors' central thesis is sensible and, especially for those first acquainting themselves with the continent's politics, subtly provocative. Rather than relying on culturalist arguments to explain sub-Saharan Africa's seemingly endemic poverty, patronage, and political instability, Leonard and Strauss posit that the root of the continent's frail states is to be found in the history of their formation and subsequent incorporation into the international economy. These processes, they argue, have resulted in the creation of weak and poorly embedded politico-administrative institutions and, more important, in the pervasiveness of enclave production. As a result, "revenue generation is physically confined to small areas, and the main markets are external, thus making the general economic health of areas outside the enclave quite secondary, if not irrelevant" (13). Enclave production provides no incentives for leaders to establish popular legitimacy through programmatic reform or a strong developmental agenda. Instead, leaders can rely on taxes or rents from exports to sustain themselves. Worse still, the physical sites for enclave production-mines, oil rigs, or concentrated agricultural estates-are easy targets for would-be rebel groups. And having once experienced conflict, the potential for repeated violence is greatly increased. all of these problems, combined with the failures of international aid, which does little more than keep African countries out of bankruptcy, have led to the crises that beset the continent. At various points throughout the book, especially in two chapters written exclusively by David Leonard on technical assistance and foreign humanitarian (military) intervention, the authors offer concrete proposals for remedying the situations they have identified. Although self-admittedly idealistic, these suggestions are well reasoned, based on solid evidence, and thought-provoking. At the same time, the authors are determined to normalize the study of African politics, first by making the subject intelligible, then by making it highly visible to an American academic audience. …