The Postcolonial State in Africa: Fifty Years of Independence, 1960–2010

9. The African Postcolonial State: Concluding Reflections

Evaluating the Postcolonial State These contrasting conclusions capture the spectrum of perception of a half century of African independence. Both authors are distinguished scholars of African politics who have immersed themselves in researching a number of states over most of this period. The disparity in their positions reflects the complexity and contradictions of the African state in its postcolonial journey.1 Closely inspected, the evaluative disparity is less complete than the quotations might suggest. Englebert concedes that there are some exceptions to his stark indictment, though he finds the modal pattern to be one of states that are “parasitic or predatory” yet also “weak and dysfunctional.” Hyden devotes a chapter to “the problematic state,” which he defines as the state that has a far weaker hold on an elusive society and its informal moral economy than its counterparts in other regions. Part of the divergence also lies in time perspective. Hyden restricts his point of reference to the last two decades. If one measures recent performance against the depth of the state decline in the 1980s, then a more optimistic reading of the postcolonial state is possible. Although several of the most 334 9 The African Postcolonial State Concluding Reflections By and large, the states of sub-Saharan Africa are failures. —Pierre Englebert, 2009 There is no reason to downplay the progress that African countries have made in the past two decades under very difficult circumstances. The distance they have covered is considerable in many instances. —Goran Hyden, 2006 The African Postcolonial State 335 derelict states have stagnated or even regressed, the condition of the majority of countries has improved. But a 1960 benchmark poses a sterner test. From Developmental Disappointments to Mixed Recovery Beyond doubt, the African state failed to achieve the march to modernity that many hoped and mainstream development economists forecast when independence dawned. Although a leading textbook at the time ranked Africa’s development potential well above East Asia, real per capita GDP did not grow over the 1960 to 1990 period; in East Asia and the Pacific, by contrast, there was a 5% per annum per capita increase,while in Latin America, there was 3% growth.2 The level of disappointment finds measure in the Congo-Kinshasa case; its legendary resources appeared in 1960 to promise a bright future. Five decades later, a meticulous study of contemporary state rebuilding efforts concludes that, with stability and competent economic management, the population might regain the average level of 1960 well-being by 2030.3 Two decades ago, the verdict of failure was well-nigh universal; the very concept of “state failure” derived from the predicament facing most African states at the time. The striking diversity of state itineraries since 1990 produces a variety of outcomes in terms of political form, developmental performance, and quality of governance, ranging from the relatively positive in Ghana, Namibia, or Tanzania to the anarchy of Somalia. Overall, in economic terms, prospects seemed somewhat improved. Since 2000, African economies have fared better than any time since the 1960s. In 2008, the IMF forecast that subSaharan African economic growth would slow to 6% after several years of a higher figure; though the global recession undermined this estimate, African countries fared better in resisting the crisis than advanced economies.4 Although a semiauthoritarian drift has gained momentum in recent years, the political opening produced by the 1990s democratization surge is far from being erased. There remains an underlying volatility to African politics that requires acknowledgment in anyone’s overall conclusions. Zimbabwe in 1997 ranked high on most criteria of effective governance; from that point forward, the situation deteriorated, rapidly from 2000, relegating the country for a time to the failed-state category. The political alternation in Kenya produced by the 2002 elections brought hopes of a renovated polity cleansed of the culture of corruption and impunity, a dream tarnished by the growing evidence that only the beneficiaries changed and dashed by the ethnic violence triggered by the disputed 2007 balloting.5 Madagascar was the first state to qualify for the American Millenium Challenge Grants, a reward earned by competent and democratic governance. By 2009, the model performance had been compromised by the spectacle of a proliferating mercantile empire accumulated by President Marc Ravolamanana.6 The sudden 2009 overthrow of the constitutional order by a thirty-three-year-old mayor of Antananarivo, Andry Rajoelina, unhinged politics, cut off access to most foreign aid, and...