Business and the State in Africa

Abstract

The dominant developmental approach in Africa over the last twenty years has been to advocate the role of markets and the private sector in restoring economic growth. Recent thinking has also stressed the need for 'ownership' of economic reform by the populations of developing countries, particularly the business community. This book studies the business-government interactions of four African countries: Ghana, Zambia, South Africa and Mauritius. Employing a historical institutionalist approach, Antoinette Handley considers why and how business in South Africa and Mauritius has developed the capacity to constructively contest the making of economic policy while, conversely, business in Zambia and Ghana has struggled to develop any autonomous political capacity. Paying close attention to the mutually constitutive interactions between business and the state, Handley considers the role of timing and how ethnicised and racialised identities can affect these interactions in profound and consequential ways.

Influence without Organizations: State-Business Relations and their Impact on Business Environments in Contemporary Africa

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Compulsory deliberation: Variations in stability between South African and Brazilian economic councils

“…Fueling unionists' suspicions, the ANC began, as government-in-waiting, to liberalize its economic rhetoric while simultaneously building connections to big business and international financial organizations. 162 COSATU also feared for its place in the Tripartite Alliance, as the ANC signaled an unwillingness to listen, including in deliberative bodies. As the federation's leaders themselves observed, 163 many African liberation movements had already sidelined their erstwhile labor allies after rising to power.…”