Africa's Great Transformation?

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes The distinction among these three principles that govern the integration of the economy in society is drawn from Karl Polanyi [ 2001 Polanyi K 2001 [1944] The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Times Boston: Beacon Press [Google Scholar] ]. Goran Hyden [ 1983 Hyden G 1983 No Shortcuts to Progress: African Development Management in Perspective London: Heinemann [Google Scholar] : 8–22] deals at length with the nature and implications of this ‘economy of affection’. For an extensive treatment, see Sandbrook [ 1985 Sandbrook R 1985 The Politics of Africa's Economic Stagnation Cambridge: Cambridge University Press [Crossref] , [Google Scholar] ]. Peasants, in this context, refer not only to smallholding households on the land, but also to the ‘peasants in the cities’ – that mélange of petty producers, hawkers, pedlars, helpers, and apprentices that throng the burgeoning informal sector. For an analysis of the unusual historical origins of market society in Mauritius, see Sandbrook [ 2005 Sandbrook R 2005 Origins of the Democratic Developmental State: Interrogating Mauritius Canadian Journal of African Studies 39 No.3 [Google Scholar] ]. For a dissection of this struggle in the 1990s, see Sandbrook [ 2000 Sandbrook R 2000 Closing the Circle: Democratization and Development in Africa London: Zed Books [Google Scholar] , chapter 5]. On this pattern in Sierra Leone, see Reno [ 1996 Reno, W. 1996. Ironies of Post-Cold War Structural Adjustment in Sierra Leone. Review of African Political Economy, No.67: 7–18. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar] ]. For the pattern elsewhere in Africa, see Reno [ 1998 Reno W 1998 Warlord Politics and African States Boulder: Lynne Rienner [Crossref] , [Google Scholar] ]. Additional informationNotes on contributorsRichard SandbrookRichard Sandbrook, Professor of Political Science, University of Toronto