Write thoughtful 500-word response papers on the attached readingsThe papers should include the following:• What is the author’s main argument?• What are the key assumptions?• Is the argument logically consistent?Write most of your paper on the following points:• How are the selected readings connected? Find common elements in all the readings.• What important elements of comparative politics are discussed in the readings?• How do the readings fit into the course as a whole? (This is critical part of the paper, make sure you write enough to show as many connections and also emphasize the differences between the articles.) comments: 1. Don’t start with article title ,is not required . Start with Author’s name.2. Mention the year after the author name For example: Laitin (2007)3. If you use direct quote mention the page #How the paper should be:1. Paragraph 1 / Briefly introduce each article2. paragraphs 2,3,43. paragraph 5/ Conclusion
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European Journal of Political Economy
Vol. 16 Ž2000. 133–158
Political culture and economic performance in
sub-Saharan Africa
Charles K. Rowley
Department of Economics, George Mason UniÕersity, Fairfax, VA, 22030 USA
Received 1 February 1999; received in revised form 1 August 1999; accepted 1 August 1999
Abstract
This paper argues that the dismal economic performance of much of sub-Saharan Africa
since independence can be explained only in part, if at all, by such conventional arguments
as adverse geography and inadequate levels of foreign aid. The paper introduces the
concepts of the stationary and the roving bandit to provide a political economic foundation
for exploring why many such countries perform now less well than was the case under
colonial governance. The paper modifies the public choice models of spatial voting, rent
seeking and rent extraction to take account of political institutions in sub-Saharan Africa.
On this basis, it explains why many such countries rapidly collapsed into one party states
and how the ‘‘Big Men’’ of Africa pillage their countries in pursuit of private gain. Case
studies of Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo provide detailed
institutional insights into the nature of this rapid post-colonial descent into kleptocracy.
q 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
JEL classification: K4; O1; P4
Keywords: Africa; Political culture; Rent seeking; Rent extraction; Kleptocracy
1. Introduction
The second half of the 20th century has been a period of economic stagnation if
not decline throughout most of sub-Saharan Africa Žhenceforth abbreviated to
Africa.. As recent statistical studies show, many Africans are worse off than they
E-mail address: crowley@osfl.gmu.edu ŽC.K. Rowley..
0176-2680r00r$ – see front matter q 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 1 7 6 – 2 6 8 0 Ž 9 9 . 0 0 0 5 1 – 8
134
C.K. Rowleyr European Journal of Political Economy 16 (2000) 133–158
were at the commencement of independence, afflicted with serious health and
nutrition problems and with a badly eroded economic infrastructure. Furthermore,
many Africans are less economically free now than their predecessors were prior
to independence.
The dismal economic performance of much of Africa since independence can
be explained only in part by conventional economic analysis. At least of equal
importance are malignant political institutions that have their genesis in the Treaty
of Berlin Ž1884., whereby the continent was divided into colonies that were shared
out among the major European imperial powers party to that Treaty. The colonial
powers conferred economic and educational privileges on elite African tribes,
using the latter to maintain internal order often under relatively loose imperial
supervision.
At independence, such elites assumed political power and quickly subverted
fragile democracies into autocracies as they pursued policies of overt rent-extraction similar to those that had been deployed by their imperial predecessors.
African leaders consolidated malignant political cultures hostile to economic
development in order to loot their countries of the rents that these adverse
economic and political institutions created.
This essay will argue Žfollowing Ake, 1996. that the ready assumption among
development economists that there has been a failure of development in Africa is
misleading. Development has not failed. Rather, it has rarely been on the agenda
of the governments that succeeded the imperialist powers. Responsibility for this
failure of development is shared among the African leaders, the elites that have
maintained them in power, the evolving institutions, and the political organizations
deliberately fashioned to promote rent-seeking and rent-extraction policies.
In short, the economic problems of Africa and the absence of economic
freedom there have their roots in public-choice impediments. Because these
impediments have lasted so long, it is inappropriate to explain them as the
consequence of error. The thrust of this essay is to explain them as the consequence of deliberate design, not by outsiders, but by dominant elites within their
respective indigenous populations.
2. The evidence
The lowering of the British flag and the raising of the flag of the new nation of
Ghana at midnight on March 6, 1957 is generally recognized as the beginning of
the independence period in Africa. By 1965, much of the rest of Africa had gained
its independence. In these early years, Africa as a whole, rich in natural resources,
was compared favorably with East Asia as a promising development region. Yet,
by the late 1980s, when real per capita income in South Korea had increased by
700%, average real per capita income in Africa had not increased at all and in
many countries had actually declined.
C.K. Rowleyr European Journal of Political Economy 16 (2000) 133–158
135
This stunning outcome was the result of two trends in Africa: very low overall
economic growth rates combined with high rates of population growth ŽLancaster,
1999, p. 19.. From 1973 to 1980, the annual economic growth rate for Africa was
2.5%. From 1980 to 1990, the annual average economic growth rate declined to
0.5%. Throughout this period, population growth rates accelerated, rising from an
average of 2.5% in 1960 to more than 3% per annum in the late 1980s. These
rapid increases in population increasingly overwhelmed income growth during
these decades leading to significant declines in real per capita income throughout
the 1980s.
During the 1980s, per capita GDP declined by 1.3% per annum, a truly
appalling record, 5 percentage points below the average for all low-income
countries. During the period 1990–1994, this decline accelerated to 1.8% per
annum, and the gap between Africa and all other low income countries widened to
6.2 percentage points per annum ŽCollier and Gunning, 1999, p. 64.. In consequence Africa as a whole remains by far the poorest area in the world at the
closing of the 20th century even though annual growth rates in per capita GDP
have struggled into the positive range since 1994 ŽLancaster, 1999, p. 19..
Economic poverty in Africa is accompanied by an acute absence of economic
freedom. In 1998, of 42 sub-Saharan African countries graded in terms of
economic freedom ŽJohnson et al., 1999. not one received a rating of ‘‘free’’.
Only seven countries received a rating of ‘‘mostly free’’, while 27 countries were
rated as ‘‘mostly unfree’’, and eight were rated as ‘‘repressed’’. Furthermore,
economic freedom actually declined across the sub-continent during 1998 as
African leaders continued to invade such property rights as their citizens had
struggled to stake out in environments alien to the rule of law. A few African
countries still tolerate slavery despite widespread international repugnance concerning this odious practice
It is not surprising, in such circumstances, that Africa is viewed as the ‘‘Dark
Continent’’ and is largely written off as a non-player in the newly emerging global
world economy.
3. Conventional rationalizations of economic malfunction in Africa
The problems of African poverty and economic stagnation have attracted a
great deal of attention in the literature of development economics. Much of this
discussion has done little more than scratch the surface of the problem, often in an
extremely misleading way.
One set of rationalizations has focused on the environmental inheritance of
Africa. Apologists argue that the physical characteristics of much of the region —
a harsh and unpredictable climate, non-navigable rivers, weathered and often
fragile soils, and the high incidence of debilitating diseases — make development
an especially difficult challenge ŽLancaster, 1999, p. 21.. This inheritance is made
136
C.K. Rowleyr European Journal of Political Economy 16 (2000) 133–158
worse by the fact that most African countries gained independence at an early
stage of development, with a limited infrastructure, few educated nationals,
subsistence agriculture, and almost no other industries.
Many other countries have overcome similarly unpromising inheritances and
have not found them to represent insuperable obstacles to economic progress.
Most of East Asia has overwhelmed such initial handicaps as their populations
have become relatively wealthy. South Korea, for example, was confronted in the
mid-1950s with few natural resources, little industry, and a war-devastated infrastructure.
The colonial inheritance has also been advanced as an explanation for economic
stagnation in Africa. Marxist scholars, in particular, attribute African underdevelopment to the alleged colonial exploitation of the region. It is argued that the
region is peripheral and economically weak because it was forced by the colonial
powers to export primary products at relatively low prices and to import manufactured goods from capitalist countries at relatively high prices. As a result, capital
effectively was withdrawn from the region, dooming it to perpetual poverty.
Even if this account is correct — and it is not uncontroversial — past colonial
exploitation can hardly explain the continued absence of economic growth in the
region some 40 years after its political independence. The evident economic
success of formerly poor and economically peripheral countries in Asia and Latin
America undercuts the force of such rationalizations, even if plain commonsense
does not.
The relatively low levels of investment and of saving evident in Africa are also
advanced as an explanation of economic stagnation. Development economists
argue that poor countries must invest roughly a quarter of GDP in order to achieve
rates of growth that will raise them from poverty. In fact, the rate of investment in
the region has fallen well short of this objective, averaging 20% over the period
1960 to 1980, and then declining to 16% throughout the 1980s. Despite recovering
to 18.5% by the mid-1990s, the rate remains little more than half that maintained
by low-income countries worldwide in 1995. Despite the low value of the capital
stock, available data show a low and declining rate of productivity of investment
in Africa ŽLancaster, 1999, p. 20..
Savings rates have also been low across Africa, averaging 19% of GDP
between 1965 and 1973, 23% between 1974 and 1980,and 16% during the 1990s.
Only 12 of 42 sub-Saharan countries recorded savings rates in excess of 15% in
1996, and four of those were petroleum exporters ŽLancaster, 1999, p. 20..
Undeniably, the data on investment and savings rates suggest that important
elements in the growth equation have long been weak within the region. The data
themselves do not explain why this chronic weakness continues to manifest itself.
The difference between savings and investment rates is made up with foreign
aid, foreign borrowing, and foreign investment. Attempts have been made to
rationalize African economic stagnation in terms of the failure of the aid program.
Such attempts are ludicrous. Over the past five decades, it has been unusual for
C.K. Rowleyr European Journal of Political Economy 16 (2000) 133–158
137
foreign aid to exceed 2% of any country’s GNP. For 35 countries in Africa,
foreign aid has exceeded 5% of GNP throughout the past 20 years and has tended
to increase over that period reaching more than 10% in a number of countries. In
the singular case of Somalia foreign aid in 1990 equaled 237% of GNP.
Development economists usually emphasize the importance of foreign aid as
the key to sustaining high rates of investment in poor countries. In 1992–1993, aid
amounted to 50% or more of total investment in 29 sub-Saharan African countries.
In 13 of those countries it was equivalent to more than 100% of investment. We
shall argue in this essay that far too much aid has gone to Africa, with alarming
implications for both economic performance and political culture. Such arguments
take us beyond conventional economic analysis into the economic analysis of
politics.
4. The post-colonial political inheritance
The present political situation in much of Africa has its roots in the international conference held in Berlin in 1884 under the chairmanship of Otto von
Bismarck when Belgium, France, Britain, Germany and Portugal were staking out
their respective colonial stakes on the African continent ŽRowley, 1998.. On
February 26, 1885, the Berlin Act was promulgated, laying down the rules of
partition for the continent. On this basis, Africa was divided up into colonies and
transformed into appendages of the leading European imperial powers. Boundaries
were drawn up with little regard for demographic and tribal configurations, usually
to facilitate colonial development of natural resources ŽMbaku, 1993, p. 24.. By
1910, the partition of Africa was complete and, for the following 45 years, only
Liberia and Ethiopia remained independent nations ŽKimenyi, 1997, pp. 12–14..
Africa’s colonial experience is an important factor to be taken into account in
analyzing the nature of the political institutions and the broader political culture
that emerged following grants of independence ŽRowley, 1998.. First, the colonists
coercively integrated different ethnic and tribal groups, ignoring differences in
culture and social systems. Second, in order to maintain internal stability, the
colonial powers only rarely encouraged the development of participatory forms of
government prior to independence.
Third, in order to divide and rule, the colonial powers failed to treat different
ethnic and tribal groups equally, with damaging consequences for the post-independence era. Most of the educated, skilled members of the indigenous populations, at independence, had been cultivated in the European languages and had
embraced elitist aspects of the European culture. They would seize the apparatus
of government and dominate many of the post-independence political markets.
This concentration of political power would have damaging consequences for the
emergence of efficient political systems ŽMbaku, 1993..
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C.K. Rowleyr European Journal of Political Economy 16 (2000) 133–158
Fourth, the potential leaders who had been educated in European Žand especially in British. elite universities had been indoctrinated in socialist political
philosophy and in the economics of John Maynard Keynes. This disastrous
colonial legacy accentuated the immediate post-independence drift towards panAfrican socialism, characterized by highly centralized governments and by highly
politicized economic markets ŽRowley, 1998..
With few exceptions, Africans gained their independence not by defeating the
colonial regimes, but as a gift Žalbeit often a reluctant gift. from their colonizers.
The imperial powers essentially handed over power to their chosen African
successors, successors educated in their systems and supposedly attentive to their
interests ŽAke, 1996, p. 3.. The elites that inherited such political largesse, moved
quickly to consolidate it, attempting to marginalize economically and to disenfranchise politically those who might compete with them for the apparatus of
government.
In many instances — for example, Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone,
Cameroon, Zambia, Uganda, and Zaire — centrifugal forces were so pronounced
by the date of independence as to threaten the political viability of the new
governments. As coalition partners withdrew, the battle for control over the
apparatus of government assumed an importance out of all proportion to Western
experience as tribes, ethnic groups, and regional interest groups vied for the rents
that political control was seen to offer. Political leaders seized upon such
centrifugal tendencies to create sectional support for their own programs, thereby
further weakening already fragile national bonds.
The new African leaders typically were neither personally wealthy nor were
they experienced in protecting the economic rights of others. In many instances,
they succumbed to the temptation to use government power as a basis for the
personal accumulation of wealth. Since they had no entrepreneurial experience, the
only basis for such wealth accumulation was the diversion of resources, too often
provided in the form of international aid, away from processes of economic
development into personal numbered bank accounts in Switzerland and elsewhere.
For the most part, the European powers prior to independence had behaved like
bandits, extracting the wealth of sub-Saharan Africa for the benefit of their own
peoples. However, because the territories allocated among them by the Treaty of
Berlin remained in their possession over lengthy periods of time, the colonial
powers viewed themselves as stationary bandits in the sense of McGuire and
Olson Ž1996.. Because stationary bandits enjoy a monopoly of theft, they have a
stable and encompassing interest in the domain over which their power is
exercised. For this reason, their selfish economic incentive is to improve productive capacity in order to raise the stock of wealth available as the basis for their
thieving.
Rational stationary bandits limit their rates of theft in order to create an
environment in which society’s production will increase. To this end, they endorse
minimalist laws designed to protect the property rights of their subjects from
C.K. Rowleyr European Journal of Political Economy 16 (2000) 133–158
139
internal anarchy. They defend their monopoly of theft against potential internal
and external aggressors. They even provide a limited social infrastructure of public
goods designed to augment the productivity of their subjects. The European
Empires were differentially rational in this regard, with the British Empire
markedly more far-sighted than the rest.
With few exceptions, the autocratic leaders of post-independent African countries quickly discovered that they did not possess a durable monopoly in theft. As
dictator after dictator succumbed in a rapid sequence of coups d’etat, governance
in Africa rapidly began to resemble that of a roving bandit in an environment of
anarchy ŽMcGuire and Olson, 1996.. The relative absence of wars between
neighboring African countries further weakened nationalistic ince …
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