Arrested development? Sub-Saharan Africa in the stratified world economy 1965–2015

ABSTRACT

The central concern of this paper is with Sub-Saharan Africa's (SSA) standing in the stratified world economy. Country standings are determined for the period 1965 through 2015, based on the Arrighi and Drangel method of calculating world-system position. We find that the region as a whole remained in the bottom of the global economic hierarchy and was particularly sensitive to macroeconomic-historical changes and pressures. Of note too is the clear link between the SSA countries that are performing well in the semiperiphery of the global economic hierarchy and those with a concentration of natural resources.

KEYWORDS:

• Development and SSA
• global economic stratification
• world-systems perspective

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on Contributor

Marilyn Grell-Brisk obtained her PhD from the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland. She was a visiting student at the Arrighi Center for Global Studies at Johns Hopkins University in 2015 and is currently a visiting researcher at the Institute for Research on World-Systems at the University of California, Riverside.

Notes

1 Refer to the Prologue of the 2011 edition of the Modern World System Volume I in which Immanuel Wallerstein argues for the world system as the primary unit of analysis and responds to all major criticisms of the world-systems perspective.

2 Seychelles had not yet gained full independence from the United Kingdom in 1965. It became a republic within the Commonwealth of Nations on 29 June 29 1976.

3 After having been criticised for a lack of data verification, AidData, which keeps one of the most comprehensive dataset on Chinese foreign aid and FDI, pursued an ‘on-the-ground’ verification of its data through in-person interviews and site visits, but this was limited in scope (Muchapondwar et al. 2014). China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) is also a source for FDI information. However, at CARI's 2015 conference, Mao Xiaojing of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation and MOFCOM noted that while most Chinese FDI data used in research in the Occident comes from MOFCOM, the data is incomplete (http://www.sais-cari.org/event-details/2015/4/10/chinese-overseas-finance-conference-2015).

4 Almost 20 years later, Taylor's words still ring true. A recent article in the Economist, noted that based on AidData statistics, if African countries voted with China an extra 10% of the time, they would get an 86% bump in official aid on average. If Rwanda, for instance, were to cast its ballot alongside China 93% of the time (instead of its current 67%), its aid from China could jump by 289%.

5 Zimbabwe has one of the world's largest reserves of platinum, as well as considerable gold, silver and copper deposits. Due to the lack of infrastructure and funding, these have been left underutilized (Eisenman and Kurlantzick 2006) and negotiations between Chinese firms and the Zimbabwean government has not been to the advantage of the unemployed population in Zimbabwe (Botha 2006; Smith 2011).