Rethinking the Relationship between Neo-patrimonialism and Economic Development in Africa
2011; Wiley; Volume: 42; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1111/j.1759-5436.2011.00213.x
ISSN1759-5436
Autores Tópico(s)Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management
ResumoIs it possible to boost poverty-reducing economic investment and growth in Africa by working with, rather than against, prevailing political-economic realities?That is the question this article seeks to answer.Most African political economies, it is well known, are characterised by high levels of clientelism, corruption and rent-seeking -a constitutive feature of systems frequently called 'patrimonial' or 'neo-patrimonial' in development literature.Working with African realities consequently implies harnessing neopatrimonialism for developmental ends.Working with, rather than against, neopatrimonialism implies a radical shift in donor priorities, since for more than 20 years orthodox development practice has sought to reform or erase it via the 'good governance agenda'.However, an emerging body of research has begun to question whether clientelism, corruption and rent-seeking are as detrimental to development as once believed, and it is on the foundations of this counter-orthodoxy that Africa Power and Politics Programme (APPP) research builds.Emerging results from a comparative review of the African and Asian development literature, a desk-based comparison of economic performance since independence in seven African countries, and fieldwork in a further five countries, suggests that neo-patrimonial governance is compatible with strong economic performance providing two conditions hold.First, there must be a bundle of broadly pro-market, pro-rural policies in place; and second, there must be an institutional system for centralising and distributing economic rents with a view to the long term.The first finding, on policy, chimes with those of two major research programmes on Africa: one is the African Economic Research Consortium (Ndulu et al. 2008), and the other is Leiden University's 'Tracking Development' programme (Henley 2010; van Donge et al. 2010); we will not rehearse it in any detail here.By contrast, our second finding, which concerns institutions, is comparatively novel in an African contextalthough it is foreshadowed elsewhere -and we consequently devote the bulk of our discussion to it.The article proceeds by discussing some of the literature on neo-patrimonialism and development, then moves to empirical evidence and mid-level theory construction, before concluding. Neo-patrimonialism and development in theoryThe term 'neo-patrimonialism' grows out of Max Weber's notion of 'patrimonialism', an 'idealtype' of traditional rule in which authority is based on ties of personal loyalty between a leader and his administrative staff (Weber 1947).In Weber's schema, patrimonialism has various 76
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