Africa Rising? Short-Term Growth vs. Deep Institutional Concerns^*

Deinstitutionalization of the State and Violence in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Contribution to the Critique of the Neoinstitutionalist Analysis of Development

“…The structural adjustment programs imposed by international organizations on African states contributed to a large extent to state collapse (Meyns andMusamba 2010a, 2010b;Raeymaekers 2005). State capacity during the 1980s was weakened because the policy recommendations of the International Financial Institutions were contradictory (Nega and Schneider 2016). Fiscal stabilization programs reduced public employment and bureaucracy (Mkandawire 2015); deregulation and the opening of economies to the global market favored deindustrialization, as in the case of the Nigerian textile industry (Olamosu and Wynne 2015).…”

“…High standards of good government were called for, which required a strong State, at a time when restructuring and deregulation programs were being imposed, which debilitated state structures. Measures of structural adjustment return to the present time under the guise of New Institutional Economics (Nega and Schneider 2016), and with them, the contradictions reappear, because behind the idea of good government, there lies a discourse that disseminates liberal norms of economic governance that imply reducing the role of the State (Nega and Schneider 2016).…”

“…Among others, Obeng-Odoom (2015a) argues that the discourse ignores the political environment under which African growth has been produced, and the serious problems of inequality, poverty, unemployment, and destruction of the environment caused by the extraction of natural resources that affect many African countries. Nega and Schneider (2016) allude to the methodological problems in the collection of data on the supposed growth, which Jerven denounced as "Statistical Tragedy," and the deliberate manipulation of such data on the part of authoritarian governments to improve their image and secure the support of International Financial Institutions. At the World Economic Forum held in Kigali in May 2016, the myth of the supposed African economic growth was described, and referred as the protests of the social movements against the deterioration of economic and social conditions in many African countries as a reflection of the falsehood of the euphoric discourse (Kabunda Badi 2017).…”

Investigating into the Employment and Income Inequality Nexus in Sub-Saharan Africa

“…Several studies call into question the hopeful "Africa Rising" narrative (Obeng-Odoom, 2015;Nega & Schneider, 2016). Despite the rapid economic growth over the past decade, Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) still faces numerous employment and inequality challenges (Benjamin & Mbaye, 2014;Noman & Stigitz, 2017;Seguino, 2020).…”