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  • Africa's Development Impasse: Rethinking the Political Economy of Transformation
  • Eric Mokube
Andreasson, Stefan. 2010. Africa's Development Impasse: Rethinking the Political Economy of Transformation. London and New York: Zed Books. 258 pp.

In Africa's Development Impasse: Rethinking the Political Economy of Transformation, Stefan Andreasson underscores the importance of rethinking African development theories in general and that of southern Africa in particular—an area that has been marginalized, until recently, by modernization, Marxist, and dependency theorists.

Since the 1950s, when African countries began assuming their independence, development economists have sought to advance neoliberal and development theories based on European experience as the only solution to the question of underdevelopment. Consequently, the problems of under-development were viewed as manifestations of distortion in the factors of production that prevented the operation of a free-market system. Therefore, [End Page 122] corrections of such dislocation through the efficient allocation of resources and following the path Europe had taken were the only panacea.

To a certain extent, Andreasson unveils in this book a highly innovative contribution to the discussion about how and in which ways Africa can negotiate to forge its own future, drawing upon the resources totally at its disposal. This publication usefully examines the social, political, economic, and cultural factors that have affected southern Africa's development. The book is thought-provoking, and Andreasson's background—as a scholar of comparative politics and Africa's economic development—is visible in his juxtaposition of politics and economy in the contexts of sociology and history.

Approaching the question of Africa's development impasse constitutes revisiting the question of colonization as well as issues surrounding the development of the postcolonial state in Africa. This nuance, as further advanced in the publication, is manifested in the widespread and growing disparity that surrounds many postcolonial nations in southern Africa. Toward that end, Andreasson advocates a postdevelopment perspective through alternative analysis. Readers interested in understanding the spectacular failure of orthodox strategies for socioeconomic development in Africa in general and southern Africa will benefit tremendously from this book.

In six chapters, Andreasson examines the failures, and explores the potential for alternatives, by analyzing a trio of southern African nations: South Africa, Botswana, and Zimbabwe, whose different paths to political independence have been unable to overcome a debilitating colonial legacy. Chapter one explores the central development dilemma, whereby we learn that Africa's history teaches the importance of social harmony. In southern Africa, the issue of ubuntu, seen as the fundamental way that southern Africans regard life, has never been fully integrated into the development debate: on the contrary, uneven development, symptomatic of the region's historical evolution and its political economy, combined with the increasingly competitive global economy and its strict adherence to neoliberal economic doctrines, have produced tension and pressures on the nations and their citizens. This chapter underscores the continuous social, political, and economic marginalization of the southern African people while discarding their indigenous sources of knowledge and legitimacy, political transitions to independence, and nominal democracy, which did not produce radical socioeconomic transformation. As a result, the targets of development do not factor in the development nexus. Instead, contemporary critiques of development theory assert that development poses solutions to problems in a particularly apolitical, antiseptic, and neutral way. For them, development involves directing others on what to do in the name of modernization, as well as nation-building, progress, poverty alleviation, and, indeed, empowerment-cum-participation.

Chapter two looks at the development nexus in detail. It discusses interactions among state, market, and society to produce policies aimed [End Page 123] at socioeconomic development. The crucial query to answer concerns the conceptual definition of development, which, in the case of South Africa, is engrained in the corporatist state.

Chapter three articulates a new vision, through which developing countries can transcend current quandaries. It explores postdevelopment theorizing in the African context and, by generally analyzing the approach, it argues that this new postdevelopment vision offers a genuine means to inject indigenous ways of thinking and being into the development debate. The second section of this chapter highlights different aspects of southern Africa's development trajectories.

Chapter four offers an analysis of what actually transpired in...

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