Africa's Quest for Developmental States: ‘renaissance’ for whom?

Abstract

After a generally disappointing half-century since recapturing formal independence, at the turn of the second decade of the 21st century, Africa(s) may now be able to seize unanticipated emerging opportunities to move from `fragile' or `failed' towards `developmental' political economies. The continent displays innovations in terms of sources of finance, new regionalisms & transnational governance leading to distinctive insights for analysis & policy, both state & non-state. Its potential for renaissance is reinforced by South Africa's accession as the fifth of the BRICS at the dawn of the decade.

Notes

1 ‘Africa rising’, The Economist, 3 December 2011, p 73.

2 World Bank, Africa's Future and the World Bank's Support to It, Washington, DC: World Bank, March 2011.

3 See www.mckinsey.com.

4 The Economist, 13 May 2000.

5 World Economic Forum (wef), The African Competitiveness Report 2011, Davos: wef, 2011. See also Into Africa: Institutional Investor Intentions to 2016, Abu Dhabi: Invest AD, 2012.

6 JN Pieterse, ‘Global rebalancing: crisis and the East–South turn’, Development and Change, 42(1), 2011, p 22.

7 See R Modi (ed), South–South Cooperation: Africa on the Centre Stage, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

8 uneca, Economic Report on Africa 2011: Governing Development in Africa—The Role of the State in Economic Transformation, Addis Ababa: uneca, March 2011, p 128.

9 Ibid, p 95.

10 See S Radelet, Emerging Africa: How 17 Countries are leading the Way, Washington, DC: cgd, 2010.

11 See www.bcg.com.

12 A Vetterlein (ed), ‘Forum: development issues in Africa—challenges, concepts, opportunities’, Journal of International Relations and Development, 14(1), 2011, pp 60–150.

13 uneca, Economic Report on Africa 2011, p 2.

14 See TM Shaw & O Aluko (eds), Africa Projected: From Recession to Renaissance by the Year 2000?, London: Macmillan, 1985.

15 ‘ssa's big move up’, Financial Post, 12 March 2011, pp FP1–FP7.

16 World Bank, Africa's Future and the World Bank's Support to It, p 7.

17 Ibid, p 30.

18 See, for example, www.globalwitness.org; www.naturalresourcecharter.org; www.pacweb.org; and www.worldbank.org/wdr2011. See also World Bank, World Development Report 2011: Conflict, Security and Development, Washington, DC: World Bank, April 2001.

19 uneca, Economic Report on Africa 2011, pp 7, 106.

20 See www2.goldmansachs.com/ideas/global.

21 P Khanna, The Second World: How Emerging Powers are Redefining Global Competition in the Twenty-first Century, New York: Random House, 2009.

22 See www.economist.com/theworldin/2011.

23 See www.mckinsey.com.

24 ‘Africa's top companies 2010’, African Business, April 2010, pp 12–45.

25 See www.moibrahimfoundation.org.

26 See S Plaza & D Ritha, Diasporas for Development in Africa, Washington, DC: ibrd, 2011.

27 uneca, Economic Report on Africa 2011, p 2.

28 J Heine, On the Manner of Practising the New Diplomacy, Working Paper No 11, Waterloo: cigi, 2006.

29 A Warleigh-Lack, N Robinson & B Rosamond (eds), New Regionalism & the EU: Dialogues, Comparisons and Research Directions, Abingdon: Routledge.

30 See N Dorr, S Lund & C Roxburgh, ‘The African miracle’, Foreign Policy, December 2010, pp 80–81.

31 See P Nel & D Nolte (eds), ‘Regional powers in a changing global order’, Review of International Studies, 36(4), pp 877–974.

32 See J N Pieterse & B Rehein (eds), Globalization and Emerging Societies: Development and Inequality, London: Palgrave Macmillan.

33 uneca, Economic Report on Africa 2011, p 2.

34 Heine, On the Manner of Practising the New Diplomacy.

35 See P Develtere & T De Bruyn, ‘The emergence of a fourth pillar in development aid’, Development in Practice, 19(7), 2009, pp 912–922.

36 See S Khagram, Dams & Development: Transnational Strategies for Water and Power, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004; and K Dingwerth, ‘Private transnational governance and the developing world’, International Studies Quarterly, 52(3), 2008, pp 607–634.

37 ‘Lights, camera, Africa’, The Economist, 18 December 2010, pp 85–87.

38 See, inter alia, M Bevir (ed), Sage Handbook of Governance, London, 2011; SS Brown (ed), Transnational Transfers and Global Development, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012; Dingwerth, ‘Private transnational governance and the developing world’; and T Hale & D Held (eds), Handbook of Transnational Governance, Cambridge: Polity, 2011.

39 See www.wdr2011.worldbank.org.

40 Dorr et al, ‘The African miracle’, p 80.

41 See K Hanson, G Kararach & TM Shaw (eds), Rethinking Development Challenges for Public Policy: Insights from Contemporary Africa, London: Palgrave Macmillan for acbf, 2012.

42 See Africa's Future and the World Bank's Support to It.

43 Pieterse, ‘Global rebalancing’, p 22.