Neopatrimonialism and corruption: towards a new common sense^*

* This paper was prepared for the ACCERUS BRICS project. The first two papers in this series focused on Brazil (Kai and Khan 2018) and India (Sudarshan and Khan 2017). In contrast, this paper is more conceptual and theoretical in nature.

ABSTRACT

Neopatrimonialism, according to the distinguished development scholar, Thandika Mkandawire [2015. “Neopatrimonialism and the Political Economy of Economic Performance in Africa: Critical Reflections.” World Politics 67 (3): 563–612], provides the ‘common denominator’ for a host of practices of politics in Africa; viz. patronage, corruption, cronyism, and predation. So deeply embedded is this view among mainstream thinkers, that ‘underneath every policy lurks neopatrimonialism’, that the idea has come to be imbued with the ‘air of irrefutable common sense’. This paper deconstructs common sense refracted through the lens of present-day statecraft and the deceptive and subversive nature of contemporary neoliberal governance. It cautiously outlines the contours of a new common sense, placing emphasis on theorisation, a situated politics, institutional recalibration, fundamental changes in social relations, and the adoption of ‘bad’ and unorthodox development policies.

KEYWORDS:

• Neopatrimonialism
• corruption
• African governance

Notes on author

Firoz Khan is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Public Leadership. His academic expertise, research interests and publications span development planning, housing, urban studies, applied economics, informality, institutional transformation, and governance. His most recent co-edited book is State, governance and development in Africa (2016). Prior to joining academia, Firoz worked in the NGO sector and co/authored numerous White Papers and strategy documents of the post-apartheid administration. Before this, he was the Research Manager of the South African Parliamentary Research Unit.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

* This paper was prepared for the ACCERUS BRICS project. The first two papers in this series focused on Brazil (Kai and Khan 2018) and India (Sudarshan and Khan 2017). In contrast, this paper is more conceptual and theoretical in nature.

1 The post-truth morality has been aided by media evolution, wherein the ‘fragmentation of news sources has created an atomised world in which lies, rumour and gossip spread with alarming speed’ (Economist 2016). Online networks with numerous subscribers who are skeptical of the ‘mainstream media-sources’ and trust each other more means that lies frequently pass as truth. ‘Presented with evidence that contradicts a belief that is dearly held, people have the tendency to ditch the facts first. Well-intentioned journalistic practices bear blame too. The pursuit of “fairness” in reporting often creates phoney balance at the expense of truth. NASA scientist says Mars is probably uninhabited; Professor Snooks says it is teeming with aliens. It’s really a matter of opinion. It’s really a matter of opinion’ (Economist 2016)

2 The contemporary slide into illiberalism of many states – who are disdainful of the law and suspicious of press freedom – is disturbingly ‘all taking place with the consent and connivance of at least a portion of the people, and they are taking place through the ballot box’ (Cohen 2018)

3 While the ascendancy to power of populist leaders is a grave problem, more troubling is the ‘real problem, faced not least in SA … is “state capture”, of which populism is only one aspect’ (Cohen 2018).

4 It is interesting to note that Trump’s comment about Africans, Haitians, immigrants, Mexicans and others are ‘views held within the US political establishment and among the wider general population’. In fact, racist and ‘antiforeigner prejudices’ have been ‘displayed and supported by US presidents and officials for decades’ dating back to Dwight Eisenhower, who said that segregationist Southerners ‘were not bad people’ and were concerned that ‘their sweet little girls are not required to sit alongside some big overgrown Negros’. Lyndon Johnson referred to civil rights legislation as ‘nigger bills’ and Richard Nixon referred to blacks as ‘Negro bastards’ living ‘like a bunch of dogs’. Ronald Reagan supported the apartheid government by vetoing sanctions and depicted black women reliant on state grants as ‘welfare queens’. Bill Clinton delayed intervention in Rwanda and withdrew the United Nations peacekeeping mission – ‘one of the worst cases of racism in global relations’ – which was a major contributing factor in the genocide. He also enacted crime legislation that resulted in the imprisonment of ‘millions of nonviolent blacks and Latino youths’. Two years later, Clinton’s ‘support for welfare reforms … resulted in the immiseration of the most vulnerable people in the US’. When Obama delivered his 2009 Nobel Peace prize presentation, references to Africa ‘were to Somalia as a “failed state” of terrorism, piracy and famine, genocide in Darfur and rape in Democratic Republic of Congo’ (Adebajo 2018).

5 These include trade barriers, industrial policy, infant industry protection, export subsidies, and patent violation, which today are termed ‘bad policies’. Indeed, a significant component of the success of East Asian developmental states resides in a combination of ‘close government ties with business, clientelism and bureaucratic insulation’ (Khan 2010, 69). The sociologist Peter Evans terms this ‘embedded autonomy’ (Evans 1995). In sum then, the East Asian experience demonstrates that ‘extensive cronyism’ and ‘bad polices’ (amongst others factors), under certain political conditions, is ‘compatible with heightened levels of productive investment and dynamic growth’ (Mkandawire 1998, 11).

6 We return to this point in the Conclusion.

7 The Economist (2016) recently remarked:

There is a strong case that, in America and elsewhere, there is a shift towards a politics in which feelings trump facts more freely and with less resistance than used to be case. Helped by new technology, a deluge of facts and a public much less given to truth than once it was, some politicians are getting away with a new depth and pervasiveness of falsehood. If this continues, the power of the truth as a tool for solving society’s problems could be lastingly reduced … It is tempting to think, that when policies sold on dodgy prospectuses start to fail, lied-to supporters might see the error of their ways. The worst part of post-truth politics, though, is that this self-correction cannot be relied on. When lies make the political system dysfunctional, its poor results can feed the alienation and lack of trust in institutions that make the post-truth play possible in the future.

8 It is posited that the ‘cultivation of strategic unknowns remains a resource - perhaps the greatest resource - for those in a position of power and those subject to it’ (Mishra n.d., 1).

9 Both anti-corruptionism and corruption are ‘amoeba-like’ (Seale 2017, 439) with selective incorporations and strategic delimitation of its territory for survival.