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Ethnicity and Democracy in Africa
Get PDFThe paradox of efforts over the past twenty years to reinvent democracy in Africa has been that rather than dampening the fires of ethnic conflict, they have often made them more intense and in the past decade have been accompanied by the explosion of violent conflicts of autochthony, confrontations of ‘sons of the soil’, that threaten the very bases of social order and cohesion in multi-ethnic societies. This essay explains the relationship through an argument in five parts. First, I examine the social construction of African ethnicities since the imposition of European colonial rule, with particular focus on both the role of the state and the market, as well as the internal response in African societies. Second, I discuss the particular relationship between the state, colonial and post-colonial, with effective institutionalization of ‘Big Man’ politics and patronage as the essential link between ethnic communities and the state and mode of access to the resources of modernity. Third, we will see that both nationalism and ethnicity in Africa share a common origin and focus on grasping control of the state apparatus that reinforces rather than undermines the salience of the nation-state. Fourth, I argue that neo-liberal ‘reforms’ of the state and market have led to significant political, social and economic decay that can reinforce ethnic cleavages and undermine democratization in multi-party regimes, even where there have been serious efforts at constitutional reforms to contain and limit its political expression. Finally, and fifth, I look at the conflicts of autochthony that have exploded in four very different national contexts that share a common relationship to economic crisis, growing social decay and increasing inequality in supposedly democratizing nations.research repor
Will China’s Recovery Affect Africa’s Prospects for Economic Growth?
Get PDFThe likelihood that China’s economic recovery will affect the growth of selected African economies (Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa) was investigated by examining annual co-movements in GDP. Using aggregate outputs as proxies for business cycle indicators along with a threshold autoregressive estimation technique, we found evidence that the aggregate outputs of three of the aforementioned African countries are nonlinearly co-integrated with that of China. Unexpectedly, we also found that the adjustment responses of African output to downturns far outweighs responses to upturns: In particular, Nigerian output adjusts relatively quickly to offset lower levels with respect to its long-run trend vis-à-vis China’s GDP. In Kenya, by contrast, the speed of adjustment is more rapid for positive discrepancies than for negative ones. Other findings support the proposition that African economies will benefit from a China-led global recovery, though at different rates for different countries depending on whether the exports contribute to China’s production chain (as raw materials) or to its consumption chain. Over the long run, the gains from synchronization via trade of the outputs of African economies with those of China and other major economies will depend strongly on the Africans’ preparedness for the development of efficient and supportive physical infrastructure.research repor
On the Possibility of a Lowland Rice Green Revolution in Sub-Saharan Africa:
Get PDFIn many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, rapid urbanization has led to a surge in demand for rice in urban areas. However, most of the supply depends on imported rice since rice is not a staple food in the rural areas and domestic production is still limited. In order for domestically grown rice to compete with imported rice, improvements in the productivity of rice cultivation are essential in Eastern Uganda. Although rice production has been expanding since the end of the 1990s, its productivity is quite low because basic rice cultivation practices have not been widely adopted. To raise this low level of productivity, JICA has provided training on basic production practices along with small irrigation schemes that are constructed by the farmers themselves. This study attempts to understand the impacts of the demonstration of or training in improved lowland rice management practices on their diffusion and on rice yields using the case of the JICA program in Eastern Uganda. The most important finding of this study is that lowland rice yields can be extremely high in Uganda if basic production practices, such as bunding, leveling, and straight-row planting, are adopted along with the introduction of modern rice varieties and the use of simple irrigation systems, even if chemical fertilizer is not applied. The major challenge is how to find the most appropriate means of disseminating such a package of improved production practices to the farmers. According to our analysis, the intensity of participation in the training is the key to the adoption of these basic production practices. It was also found that training participation decreases the further the distance the participants live from the demonstration plot.research repor
Climate Change, Perceptions and the Heterogeneity of Adaptation and Rice Productivity: Evidence from Indonesian Villages
Get PDFThis paper examines how change in rainy season induces adaptation strategy among farmers and affects rice production using recently collected household data from seven provinces in Indonesia. The data demonstrate delays in the perceived onset of rainy season and increased uncertainty in rainfall pattern in the region. Empirical analysis shows that (i) delay in the onset significantly decreases land productivity growth in rice production; one month delay offsets the average growth observed in 1999-2007, (ii) irrigation share significantly explains the growth of land productivity, and (iii) farmers change planting timing in response to delays in the onset of rainy season (water availability). Our results show that delays in rainfall decrease returns to irrigation infrastructure. It is also found that individual-level variations in the perceived changes of the onset explain the extent to which such an adaptation strategy is taken as a measure to respond to climate change.research repor
Diversity of Communities and Economic Development: An Overview
Get PDFThis paper reviews the literature on the impact of ethnic diversity on economic development. Ethnically polarized societies are less likely to agree on the provision of public goods and more likely to engage in rent seeking activities providing lower levels of social capital. Initial conditions are important determinants of adverse development outcomes. The role of decentralization, democracy and markets as potential remedies are discussed. The paper then presents a number of preliminary hypotheses on the relationship between diversity and instability in order to stimulate future research.research repor
The Global Financial Crisis and Recession
Get PDFThis article analyzes how the global financial crisis is affecting African economies and identifies risks ahead with respect to prospects for development. Preliminary assessment shows that the aftershocks of the global meltdown have affected African economies through declines in exports of primary commodities and the relative price of exports, capital inflows, and investment in the infrastructure on which future growth depends. In addition, government revenues are dwindling. Combined with rapidly rising unemployment, the decline has weakened the fragile safety net and caused living standards in most countries to deteriorate. The global recession has served as a reminder that African success stories are still very fragile. The ongoing global rebalancing may negatively affect economic growth prospects in Africa. Short-term policy should therefore focus on expanding fiscal space, rehabilitating physical infrastructure using labor-intensive techniques, and providing social safety nets, such as employment protection. The challenge for Africa should not consist simply of ensuring that national economies return to the precrisis commodity export–led type of growth but that the drivers of growth switch to a more value chain–based and intra-African trade–driven pattern. Addressing the challenges of African postcrisis development requires policies that strengthen the resilience of African economies to external shocks, by investing massively in infrastructure.research repor
Ethnic Patriotism and Markets in African History
Get PDFAfrican economic and social history since 1800 suggests that the relationships between ethnic consciousness and market transaction is very varied and largely unpredictable. The early twentieth century was a period of important change. Before 1900 labour was scarce and land abundant: inter-ethnic relations were relatively flexible, thanks to a general demand for mobile labour supplies. By 1960 population growth meant that property had become more valuable than labour: inter-ethnic relations became harder, thanks also to the way in which the colonial imposition of state structures had tended to institutionalise ethnic groups as units of political competition. Against this broad periodisation of social, economic, and political change, this chapter's case studies illustrate widely differing contexts and processes across African time and space. Much has depended on economic geography and on highly contingent historical circumstances, as also on the nature of the commodity traded in Africa's markets, whether labour (slave or free, skilled or unskilled), foodstuffs, cash crops, property, and political influence. While analysis of ethno-market relations in Africa has generally focused on 'horizontal' inequalities between ethno-regional groups, this chapter places equal, if not more, emphasis on changing 'vertical' social inequalities between persons or categories (gender, generation, class) within ethnic groups as a source of social unrest and political pressure. Internal, intra-ethnic tension over the 'moral economy' between the strong and the weak, rich and poor, can provoke a crisis of 'moral ethnicity', a sense of loss of moral community. This may provoke a crisis of 'political tribalism', as internal tension is dissipated in external competition. The contrast between the relative degree of internal tension within the Kikuyu and Luo peoples of Kenya provides an instructive case study of these possible connections between internal and external ethnic patriotisms. The chapter ends by proposing that Africa's history suggests that economists must look for more flexible, more agent-based, more class-conscious, models of possible ethnic relations with market economy than those that are currently relied upon.research repor
Stability of the Market Economy in the Presence of Diverse Economic Agents
Get PDFThe stability of market economy is defined and stability conditions deduced which do not appear to restrict preferences in any significant manner. This assumes importance when considering economies where diversity among agents is known to exist. It is shown that if a condition on the rank of the Jacobian matrix of the excess demand functions at equilibria is satisfied then equilibria will be locally asymptotically stable. When this condition is not met, it is shown how redistributing resources may lead to stable competitive equilibrium. It is also shown how instead of imposing credible penalties, which may cause significant incentive problems, redistributing resources may serve to provide the correct incentives to agents who otherwise might have contributed to market failure.research repor