Pub Date : 2022-10-02DOI: 10.1080/03056244.2023.2171284
T. Gillespie, Seth Schindler
ABSTRACT Many African governments have embraced centralised spatial planning and the construction of large-scale connective infrastructure as a means to synergise industrialisation and functional urban development. This article examines the tensions between these economic and urban development objectives in Ghana and Kenya. Infrastructure-led development in both cases has fuelled extended and unplanned urbanisation and the production of new frontiers for real estate investment. However, the evidence indicates that it has failed to contribute to processes of structural transformation. This argument advances debates about the tensions between supply chain and rentier capitalism and problematises the assumed relationship between infrastructure-led development and industrialisation.
{"title":"Africa’s new urban spaces: deindustrialisation, infrastructure-led development and real estate frontiers","authors":"T. Gillespie, Seth Schindler","doi":"10.1080/03056244.2023.2171284","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03056244.2023.2171284","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Many African governments have embraced centralised spatial planning and the construction of large-scale connective infrastructure as a means to synergise industrialisation and functional urban development. This article examines the tensions between these economic and urban development objectives in Ghana and Kenya. Infrastructure-led development in both cases has fuelled extended and unplanned urbanisation and the production of new frontiers for real estate investment. However, the evidence indicates that it has failed to contribute to processes of structural transformation. This argument advances debates about the tensions between supply chain and rentier capitalism and problematises the assumed relationship between infrastructure-led development and industrialisation.","PeriodicalId":47526,"journal":{"name":"Review of African Political Economy","volume":"49 1","pages":"531 - 549"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47360721","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-02DOI: 10.1080/03056244.2023.2194164
Aloysius-michaels Okolie, K. E. Nnamani, Chikodiri Nwangwu, Humphrey Nwobodo Agbo, Chinedu Cyril Ike
ABSTRACT This study challenges the argument that the non-enforceability of the procurement law is the bane of infrastructural development in Nigeria. Focusing on the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector, the article argues that various attempts at procurement regulation were in fact moves to expand capital accumulation in the service delivery sector. Highly placed individuals leverage the lowest responsive bidding mechanism to engage in sharp practices which undermine the development of the WASH sector in the country. Given the prevailing scenario which presents the state, its institutions and laws – including the procurement legislation – as instruments in the hands of the dominant social forces, any investments in and attempts at rule enforcement tend to produce only minimal outcomes.
{"title":"Public procurement law, political economy of the lowest responsive bidding, and the development of the water, sanitation and hygiene sector in Nigeria","authors":"Aloysius-michaels Okolie, K. E. Nnamani, Chikodiri Nwangwu, Humphrey Nwobodo Agbo, Chinedu Cyril Ike","doi":"10.1080/03056244.2023.2194164","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03056244.2023.2194164","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This study challenges the argument that the non-enforceability of the procurement law is the bane of infrastructural development in Nigeria. Focusing on the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector, the article argues that various attempts at procurement regulation were in fact moves to expand capital accumulation in the service delivery sector. Highly placed individuals leverage the lowest responsive bidding mechanism to engage in sharp practices which undermine the development of the WASH sector in the country. Given the prevailing scenario which presents the state, its institutions and laws – including the procurement legislation – as instruments in the hands of the dominant social forces, any investments in and attempts at rule enforcement tend to produce only minimal outcomes.","PeriodicalId":47526,"journal":{"name":"Review of African Political Economy","volume":"49 1","pages":"550 - 568"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46355742","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-03DOI: 10.1080/03056244.2022.2154012
R. Cline-Cole
Celebrated on 25 May each year on the continent and by African diasporas worldwide to mark the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1963, Africa Day is of symbolic and practical value. It is, as the intergovernmental International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property puts it, an occasion for ‘Celebrations, Reflections and Concrete Actions’ (ICCROM 2022); a day, then, ‘to reflect on the progress Africa has made as a continent, in the face of the many challenges that a global environment brings [and] to recognise the successes of the continent and its cultural and economic potential’ (Africa.com 2021). This year, which also marks the 20th anniversary of the OAU’s transformation into the African Union (AU) in July 2002, has seen Africa Day celebrations during the AU’s Year of Nutrition taking place in the context of a heightened instability in the global order, characterised by the interlinked crises of Covid-19, the cost of living and the Russia–Ukraine war (Dua 2022). Globally, disruptions to food, fuel, energy and mineral supply chains caused or exacerbated by the war are ‘eroding standards of living and aggravating macroeconomic imbalances’ which were beginning to show slight signs of recovery in the wake of Covid-19 (Selassie and Kovacs 2022). Moreover, as the International Monetary Foundation (IMF)’s most recent Regional Economic Outlook for Africa acknowledges, states and governments have little room for manoeuvre in responding to what the IMF describes as a new and exogenous shock (IMF 2022), and which its managing director recognises as involving ‘this food crisis com[ing] on top of a debt crisis’ (cited in Roberts 2022). The cost-of-living crisis in particular is exacerbating continental food insecurity and malnutrition, in addition to fuelling goods and services inflation, with the most vulnerable economies, households and individuals experiencing the greatest privations across the continent (Akinwotu 2022a; Babalola 2022; BBC 2022a). Indeed, a combination of Covid, conflict and the climate emergency had already precipitated acute hunger in some of the world’s poorest countries, even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its impact on food, fuel and fertiliser prices (Davies 2022a), which has increased the likelihood of some of the worst-hit parts of eastern and southern Africa, among others, being pushed into famine in the absence of appropriate and effective global and local intervention (The Guardian 2022a; Davies 2022b). And yet, recent Oxfam analysis of IMF Covid-19 loan conditionalities has shown the IMF systematically encouraging countries to plan to (re-)impose austerity as soon as the Coronavirus pandemic subsided (Tamale 2021), although the Fund’s director of its African Department has responded by highlighting, as evidence of good faith and commitment to the continent’s long-term fiscal health, IMF provision of initial funding which helped countries to create
{"title":"Capitalist crises and unstable global and national orders?","authors":"R. Cline-Cole","doi":"10.1080/03056244.2022.2154012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03056244.2022.2154012","url":null,"abstract":"Celebrated on 25 May each year on the continent and by African diasporas worldwide to mark the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1963, Africa Day is of symbolic and practical value. It is, as the intergovernmental International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property puts it, an occasion for ‘Celebrations, Reflections and Concrete Actions’ (ICCROM 2022); a day, then, ‘to reflect on the progress Africa has made as a continent, in the face of the many challenges that a global environment brings [and] to recognise the successes of the continent and its cultural and economic potential’ (Africa.com 2021). This year, which also marks the 20th anniversary of the OAU’s transformation into the African Union (AU) in July 2002, has seen Africa Day celebrations during the AU’s Year of Nutrition taking place in the context of a heightened instability in the global order, characterised by the interlinked crises of Covid-19, the cost of living and the Russia–Ukraine war (Dua 2022). Globally, disruptions to food, fuel, energy and mineral supply chains caused or exacerbated by the war are ‘eroding standards of living and aggravating macroeconomic imbalances’ which were beginning to show slight signs of recovery in the wake of Covid-19 (Selassie and Kovacs 2022). Moreover, as the International Monetary Foundation (IMF)’s most recent Regional Economic Outlook for Africa acknowledges, states and governments have little room for manoeuvre in responding to what the IMF describes as a new and exogenous shock (IMF 2022), and which its managing director recognises as involving ‘this food crisis com[ing] on top of a debt crisis’ (cited in Roberts 2022). The cost-of-living crisis in particular is exacerbating continental food insecurity and malnutrition, in addition to fuelling goods and services inflation, with the most vulnerable economies, households and individuals experiencing the greatest privations across the continent (Akinwotu 2022a; Babalola 2022; BBC 2022a). Indeed, a combination of Covid, conflict and the climate emergency had already precipitated acute hunger in some of the world’s poorest countries, even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its impact on food, fuel and fertiliser prices (Davies 2022a), which has increased the likelihood of some of the worst-hit parts of eastern and southern Africa, among others, being pushed into famine in the absence of appropriate and effective global and local intervention (The Guardian 2022a; Davies 2022b). And yet, recent Oxfam analysis of IMF Covid-19 loan conditionalities has shown the IMF systematically encouraging countries to plan to (re-)impose austerity as soon as the Coronavirus pandemic subsided (Tamale 2021), although the Fund’s director of its African Department has responded by highlighting, as evidence of good faith and commitment to the continent’s long-term fiscal health, IMF provision of initial funding which helped countries to create ","PeriodicalId":47526,"journal":{"name":"Review of African Political Economy","volume":"49 1","pages":"369 - 389"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48802568","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-03DOI: 10.1080/03056244.2022.2109012
P. H. Omeh, I. Abada, C. Onah, Ngozika Josephine Anozie, B. Amujiri
SUMMARY Bilateral formal trade relations between Nigeria and the Republic of Benin have increased significantly in the last 10 years. There has also been an increase in the smuggling of contraband goods due to the porous borders. This briefing explores the nexus between bilateral trade and politico-administrative border relations between the two countries. It interrogates the character of the border relations and consequences for the political economy of trade. The briefing highlights that border politics drive formal and informal trade relations. It also highlights other drivers of illegal activities in the border areas, including the cultural affinity between inhabitants living within the contiguous borders, and compromised government officials.
{"title":"Bilateral trade and politico-administrative border relations in Africa: an analysis of the case of Nigeria and Benin Republic","authors":"P. H. Omeh, I. Abada, C. Onah, Ngozika Josephine Anozie, B. Amujiri","doi":"10.1080/03056244.2022.2109012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03056244.2022.2109012","url":null,"abstract":"SUMMARY Bilateral formal trade relations between Nigeria and the Republic of Benin have increased significantly in the last 10 years. There has also been an increase in the smuggling of contraband goods due to the porous borders. This briefing explores the nexus between bilateral trade and politico-administrative border relations between the two countries. It interrogates the character of the border relations and consequences for the political economy of trade. The briefing highlights that border politics drive formal and informal trade relations. It also highlights other drivers of illegal activities in the border areas, including the cultural affinity between inhabitants living within the contiguous borders, and compromised government officials.","PeriodicalId":47526,"journal":{"name":"Review of African Political Economy","volume":"49 1","pages":"487 - 497"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46797181","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-03DOI: 10.1080/03056244.2022.2133205
Lee Wengraf
The Review of
审查
{"title":"The climate emergency in Africa: crisis, ‘solutions’ and resistance","authors":"Lee Wengraf","doi":"10.1080/03056244.2022.2133205","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03056244.2022.2133205","url":null,"abstract":"The Review of","PeriodicalId":47526,"journal":{"name":"Review of African Political Economy","volume":"49 1","pages":"392 - 394"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46725928","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-03DOI: 10.1080/03056244.2022.2093634
Nataliya Mykhalchenko, Jörg Wiegratz
SUMMARY This briefing explores anti-fraud measures (AFMs) in Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. This is the last of three Briefings which examine the characteristics of AFMs across Africa. The findings confirm our earlier analyses concerning major anti-fraud measure drivers, actors, tools and controversies. These measures link matters of corporate competition, branding, consumer protection, industrial policy, capitalism and national politics, and are by now a component of economic policy and governance of various African states. A reflection on the data presented across the three Briefings concludes, and marks the end of the series.
{"title":"Anti-fraud measures in Western Africa and commentary on research findings across the three regions analysed","authors":"Nataliya Mykhalchenko, Jörg Wiegratz","doi":"10.1080/03056244.2022.2093634","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03056244.2022.2093634","url":null,"abstract":"SUMMARY This briefing explores anti-fraud measures (AFMs) in Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. This is the last of three Briefings which examine the characteristics of AFMs across Africa. The findings confirm our earlier analyses concerning major anti-fraud measure drivers, actors, tools and controversies. These measures link matters of corporate competition, branding, consumer protection, industrial policy, capitalism and national politics, and are by now a component of economic policy and governance of various African states. A reflection on the data presented across the three Briefings concludes, and marks the end of the series.","PeriodicalId":47526,"journal":{"name":"Review of African Political Economy","volume":"49 1","pages":"472 - 486"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41442434","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-03DOI: 10.1080/03056244.2022.2117493
{"title":"Ruth First Prize","authors":"","doi":"10.1080/03056244.2022.2117493","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03056244.2022.2117493","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47526,"journal":{"name":"Review of African Political Economy","volume":"49 1","pages":"390 - 391"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41352082","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-03DOI: 10.1080/03056244.2022.2117921
Leo Zeilig, Chinedu Chukwudinma, B. Radley
In this section of the journal, we aim to give readers of the print journal a picture of what has been published on Roape.net over the last few months, and invite you to connect and follow the articles, blogposts, authors and debates online. Details of all the blogposts referred to here are in the reference list at the end. We warmly invite all our readers to sign up to the Roape.net newsletter and WhatsApp service at the top of the home page of the website.
{"title":"Connecting people and voices for radical change in Africa","authors":"Leo Zeilig, Chinedu Chukwudinma, B. Radley","doi":"10.1080/03056244.2022.2117921","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03056244.2022.2117921","url":null,"abstract":"In this section of the journal, we aim to give readers of the print journal a picture of what has been published on Roape.net over the last few months, and invite you to connect and follow the articles, blogposts, authors and debates online. Details of all the blogposts referred to here are in the reference list at the end. We warmly invite all our readers to sign up to the Roape.net newsletter and WhatsApp service at the top of the home page of the website.","PeriodicalId":47526,"journal":{"name":"Review of African Political Economy","volume":"49 1","pages":"652 - 654"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44836963","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-03DOI: 10.1080/03056244.2022.2098008
Phillan Zamchiya
ABSTRACT Some Marxist political economists use accumulation by dispossession to explain processes in which natural resources are enclosed and their users dispossessed through extra-economic means. However, accumulation by dispossession takes an overly omnibus and materialistic approach in trying to cover a wide range of global processes. This article therefore distils accumulation by dispossession’s three central features of coercion, non-voluntary consent and corruption to enhance its local explanatory power of material and incorporeal dispossession in post-apartheid South Africa. This approach magnifies how a triumvirate of traditional leaders, state officials and Ivanplats platinum mine dispossessed people living on customary land in Limpopo, with detrimental effects.
{"title":"Mining, capital and dispossession in post-apartheid South Africa","authors":"Phillan Zamchiya","doi":"10.1080/03056244.2022.2098008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03056244.2022.2098008","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Some Marxist political economists use accumulation by dispossession to explain processes in which natural resources are enclosed and their users dispossessed through extra-economic means. However, accumulation by dispossession takes an overly omnibus and materialistic approach in trying to cover a wide range of global processes. This article therefore distils accumulation by dispossession’s three central features of coercion, non-voluntary consent and corruption to enhance its local explanatory power of material and incorporeal dispossession in post-apartheid South Africa. This approach magnifies how a triumvirate of traditional leaders, state officials and Ivanplats platinum mine dispossessed people living on customary land in Limpopo, with detrimental effects.","PeriodicalId":47526,"journal":{"name":"Review of African Political Economy","volume":"49 1","pages":"417 - 435"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44689016","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-03DOI: 10.1080/03056244.2022.2098009
Musawenkosi Nxele
ABSTRACT This article analyses how crony capitalism emerges as a solution to maintaining investment in platinum mining. Using a case study of platinum, the analytic narrative exploits the quasi-experimental design provided by the nationalisation of mineral rights to evaluate the relationship between mining investment and crony capitalism. Does the policy have the effects intended? This article argues that the answer is no because of the cronyism between mining capital and politically connected black elites. The institutionalisation of cronyism, coupled with low economic growth and shrinking market-based black economic empowerment opportunities, bolstered and legitimised capture of the state. The system of cronyism produced limited investment and limited black productive capital. Poor mining communities and mine workers have suffered from this cronyism, but have recently organised their power to control the operating environment, or the ‘social licence’ to operate.
{"title":"Crony capitalist deals and investment in South Africa’s platinum belt: a case study of Anglo American Platinum’s scramble for mining rights, 1995–2019","authors":"Musawenkosi Nxele","doi":"10.1080/03056244.2022.2098009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03056244.2022.2098009","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article analyses how crony capitalism emerges as a solution to maintaining investment in platinum mining. Using a case study of platinum, the analytic narrative exploits the quasi-experimental design provided by the nationalisation of mineral rights to evaluate the relationship between mining investment and crony capitalism. Does the policy have the effects intended? This article argues that the answer is no because of the cronyism between mining capital and politically connected black elites. The institutionalisation of cronyism, coupled with low economic growth and shrinking market-based black economic empowerment opportunities, bolstered and legitimised capture of the state. The system of cronyism produced limited investment and limited black productive capital. Poor mining communities and mine workers have suffered from this cronyism, but have recently organised their power to control the operating environment, or the ‘social licence’ to operate.","PeriodicalId":47526,"journal":{"name":"Review of African Political Economy","volume":"49 1","pages":"395 - 416"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49326971","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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