Structural adjustment and the political question

Abstract

The call for a national debate on the country's political future has so far generated a lukewarm response. However, several tendencies have appeared which have serious implications for the struggle for democracy. Coming in the wake of the debate about Nigeria's relations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), one would have thought that the ‘political debate’ would have been informed by the specific problems the economy is experiencing and the concrete adjustment policies the state has persistently implemented since 1982. Even some of the radicals who ought to have drawn the correct lessons from the diversionary tactics of the state in the IMF debate have tended to proceed as if we are starting from a tabula raisa,without any concrete economic policies which inform the state's quest for a new political order. This partly explains the reason for the strange convergence which seems to be developing between some radicals and the bourgeoisie in the articulation of a new political formula. The thrust of this paper is to discuss the link between the state's adjustment programme and the question of political power. We argue that the adjustment programme of contemporary monetarism, which reached its highest expression in the 1986 budget, throws up specific types of political regimes ranging from zero/one and controlled two party systems to military rule, civil/ military diarchy and corporate representation. Against the background of the specific character of capitalist accumulation, with its monopolistic, antidemocratic and corrupt practices, the monetarist strategy of crisis‐management pushes the state towards more authoritarian policies. Many contributors to the political debate have not grasped this point. The appropriate response to authoritarian rule should, therefore, focus on the struggle for democracy and the strengthening of the working class movement for socialist power instead of the strategy of co‐determination which seeks to resolve the conflicting interests in the society under a unitary power structure that will accommodate the representatives of popular organisations.

Aid and authoritarianism in Africa

“…As Depak Lal, an influential figure in the Research Department of the World Bank, put it at the time, 'a courageous, ruthless and perhaps undemocratic government is required to ride roughshod over newly created interest groups ' (1983: 33). Foreign aid kept many reform-minded African governments in power during this period by providing them with sufficient resources to overcome (and suppress) domestic protest against adjustment, and thus simultaneously ensured the survival of authoritarianism (see Bangura, 1986;Beckman, 1992;Toye, 1992).…”

« Penser pour l'empire » au sein du Nigeria colonial et postcolonial

“…Babangida a imposé des conditionnalités économiques quand il est arrivé au pouvoir en 1986 ; une accession aux commandes qui a été qualifiée de « premier coup d'État du FMI » (Bangura, 2004, p. 209). La libéralisation du commerce a supprimé les contrôles à l'importation, ce qui a affaibli l'industrie manufacturière nigériane, le secteur parapublic a dû faire face à une réduction des subventions ou aux privatisations et le prix du pétrole a été augmenté (Bangura, 2004 ;Okome, 1999) 5 . Il n'y a pas eu de consensus parmi les groupes de la société civile à l'égard du PAS.…”

Structural Adjustment, Democratization and Rising Ethnic Tensions in Africa

“…The experiences of country after country, from Nigeria through Cote d'Ivoire and Senegal, to Sudan, Zaire and Zambia, have followed similar patterns. This phenomenon has been well-documented, as has the tendency for regimes operating under the politically insecure climate of SAP to turn to increasingly authoritarian, rather than democratizing, measures (on both of these, see Bangura, 1986;Gibbon et al, 1992;Herbst, 1990;Olukoshi, 1993;Onimode, 1989). However, the connection between these two aspects (anti-SAP riots and regime insecurity) and the question of military expenditure has long been overlooked, and has only recently been pointed out (Adekanye, 1994).…”