1. AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT IN HISTORICAL PERSEPCTIVE
ISSUES AND PERSPECTIVES
Gareth Austin,

2. 1. WHAT IS THE PROBLEM TO BE EXPLAINED?
Africa’s poverty: historic but also relative
This relative poverty is not at all new
One reason for taking a long view
But African economic history is also a story of growth and development
and that needs to be explained too (e.g. Jerven)

3. Insufficient development or active retardation?
Latter suggested by Dependency writers, esp. in late 1960s-70s:
‘the development of underdevelopment’ (A.G. Frank)
‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa’ (W. Rodney)
And recently, in a different way, by growth economists:
Acemoglu, Johnson & Robinson 2001, 2002, 2005, 2010; Nunn 2007, 2008
(for a critical discussion, see Austin J of International Development 20:8, 2008)

4. Refine problem in terms of nature of capitalism in Africa?
Too much capitalism or too little?
But in which sense of ‘capitalism’?
Markets (what is a market?)
‘Expanded reproduction’
Private property rights & proletarianization

5. 2. THEORY AND HISTORIOGRAPHY
Trends since the decade of Independence:
*‘Africanist’ historiography of decolonization/early Independence era
K.O. Dike (1956) to early 1970s
*More recent trends:
Focus on identities and ethnicity
Pessimism re African states & economies Neglect of precolonial history
Beginning (in 2000s) of historical approaches to postcolonial history

6. Left-wing perspectives
Dependency theory (Rodney, Amin)
Classical marxist tradition (Sender & Smith)
Heterodox economics (e.g. CODESRIA, Mkandawire)

7. Liberal economic views
Modernisation theory of 1950s (across soc sciences)
‘Market’ economic historiography (Hopkins e.g.1973)
Bates’s ‘urban bias’ & general new institutionalist political science perspective, 1980s
Economic policy advice: from state-led development (1950s-early 1980s) to ‘getting the prices right’ under Structural Adjustment (mid-to late 1980s)
Rational-choice political economy (RCPE) re-asserted: ‘ethnic fragmentation’ & ‘insecure’ property rights (1990s-2000s)

8. Sociological counterparts to RCPE view
See themselves as rejecting rational-choice assumption, but content rather similar
‘patrimonialism’ (Sandbrook) or ‘prebendalism’ (Joseph); cf. Chabal & Deloz’s Africa Works
Bayart’s ‘extraversion’ thesis:
state-formation historically hard in SSA, so elites rely on partnership with foreigners (‘extraversion’) to extract rents, rather than promoting growth
Like RCPE, imply power held by a small elite with no interest in economic development

9. 3. FINALLY: THE PROBLEM OF PERIODIZATION IN AFRICAN ECONOMIC HISTORY
Must disaggregate the precolonial era; but what about regional differences and external influence?
E.g. ‘Legitimate commerce’ (post-1807) as the ‘beginning of the modern economic history of West Africa’? (Hopkins)
Colonial era: early/middle/late?
Growth of state intervention 1939-e1980s
Economic and then political liberalization, 1980s-present

10. Preparation for next week
Please do the reading
Prepare questions and comments