The structural adjustment of politics in Africa

Abstract

It has long been recognized that the structural adjustment programs currently being proposed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Africa have important political consequences. However, there has been almost no attention devoted to what structural adjustment, if implemented, means for the way that politics is actually carried out in African nations. The failure to examine the long-term consequences of economic reform for politics is particularly surprising given that the major instruments of structural adjustment — public sector reform, devaluation, elimination of marketing boards—threaten to change not only the constituencies that African leaders look to for support but the way in which leaders relate to their supporters in the countries south of the Sahara. The paper examines how structural adjustment, if actually implemented, would affect politics in African countries. The paper finds that structural adjustment makes the political climate much riskier for leaders while weakening the central apparatus of the state on which rulers have long relied to stay in power. The implications of the analysis for donors are also discussed.