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Comparative Developmental States in Africa: The Call for a Research Agenda

 Ian Taylor*

At the recently held 8th Congress of OSSREA, entitled “International Aid, Trade and Development in Africa: The Search for a Development Paradigm”, a good number of delegates raised the urgent issue of developmental states in Africa. It was noticeable that this theme emerged time and again during the conference. Given the interest in this issue, it can be argued that a possible research agenda for OSSREA’s next round may include work on the potentiality of African developmental states. Such work would be comparative in nature and policy-oriented in scope (for an example, see Mbabazi and Taylor 2005). It would seek to examine the potential for developmental states in Africa and in doing so, refute the current Afro-pessimism that dictates that developmental states on the continent are an “impossibility”.

The context for such a research agenda is one whereby many African countries have experienced economic decline and a retreat from most developmental indices post-independence. Although this has not been a linear process and many countries experienced relative “golden periods”, the history of many post-colonial states in Africa have been comparatively disappointing. However, discussion of the nature of the state in Africa has tended to be captured within the normative framework of traditionally Western models. As one analyst remarked, ‘what needs to be recognised is that the African state is not failing as much as our understanding of the state’ (Dunn 2001, 49).

Within Africa there are however a number of states that have “bucked the trend” of decline. These have been those which have consciously borrowedbut also adaptedaspects of the developmental state model. Botswana and Mauritius spring to mind as two such examples, although there are others. The key to the differences between Botswana and Mauritius specifically, and the experiences of other states, is seen as the effective construction of a “developmental state”, as opposed to the development in other countries of a rapacious and inefficient state which has hampered development. Identifying the comparative reasons why this has occurred and seeking out lessons that other African countries could learn from would be the main thrust of a comparative research agenda.

Problematising "Developmental States"

There is of course a major problem in defining a developmental state simply from its economic performance: not all countries with good growth rates are developmental states. The definition of the “developmental state” runs the risk of being tautological since evidence that the state is developmental is often drawn deductively from the performance of the economy. This produces a definition of a state as developmental if the economy is developing, and equates economic success to state strength while measuring the latter by the presumed outcomes of its policies. In Africa, there have been many examples of states whose performance up until the mid-1970s would have qualified them as “developmental states” in the sense conveyed by current definitions, but which now seem anti-developmental because the hard times brought the economic expansion of their countries to a halt. Recognition of episodes and possibilities of failure leads us to a definition of a developmental state as one whose ideological underpinnings are developmental and one that seriously attempts to deploy its administrative and political resources to the task of economic development.

At the same time, the proposed research agenda would interrogate the dominant discourse vis-à-vis development namely, the idea that the market is the be-all and end-all of all discussions pertaining to economic progress and that, concomitant with this line of thinking, the role of the state must be curtailed from involvement in economic planning and management. The liberalization mantra, so intricately bound up with certain, arguably dominant, readings of globalisation, negates any active role for the public sector in promoting development, except perhaps as a minimalist regulator. This particular understanding of globalisation is highly problematic, particularly as it is precisely those administrations that have maintained a role for the state in promoting social and economic development the so-called “developmental states” that have the most impressive track records vis-à-vis growth and economic progress. Of those countries in Africa that have recorded respectable levels of economic development, it is precisely the developmental states of Botswana and Mauritius that have performed well. Yet, many other post-independence states have had an “activist” role for the state in the economy. The research agenda would aim to identify the nature and quality of this role.

Equally, the research would recognise that within the “practice of development”, there now exist states but also increasingly civil societies and private companies both directly and indirectly. The “triangle” or “tri-sector” of this trio of actor types, as encouraged by the World Bank (1999) et al, exists at all levels, from the local to global and constitutes the prevailing contemporary form of “governance”. These triangles can be managed and directed to enhance sustainable long-term human development as well as for shorter-term profit or image. Such “trilateral partnerships” have become increasingly popular in the 1990s as states and other actors sought to rebalance their relationships in the interests of democracy and sustainability as well as development and add an interesting and novel dimension to the notion of an African developmental state.

For sure, there is a definite need to challenge the current dominant rubbishing of the state’s role in facilitating development. Even in Tanzania, which is often held up as an African “basket case” and an example of what the African state should not do, recent research has found the orthodox condemnation of Tanzania’s development trajectory misplaced. As Mathew Costello has written,

[I]n nations with scant industry and thin capital markets, such as Tanzania, state-led investment is necessary to establish conditions under    which private investment can generate growth. Where there is little expectation of investment, and where the conditions for private sector      investment appear weak, the state may have a role to play in strengthening the market and providing initial investment (Costello 1994, 1518).

Indeed, ‘State intervention can play a vital role in creating the conditions for sustained trade growth and in ensuring that trade expansion translates into poverty reduction as the examples of both Botswana and Mauritius in Africa have demonstrated’ (Carroll and Carroll 1997).

Possible Research Problem

The purpose of the proposed research agenda would be to discuss the debate over the developmental state and its potential in fostering growth and development within the constraints of a globalised world and with particular reference to Africa. The research would aim to identify where and how the state can, if deployed competently, be serviced to the greater benefit of a country and where and how this goes wrong. In doing so, it would contradict the orthodox account of how development is best pursued and suggest that for Africa, retaining a competent and efficient developmental state structure, rather than wholesale dismantling it as Structural Adjustment Programmes demand, is a key to future development. According to Adrian Leftwich (1995, 401):

Developmental states may be defined as states whose politics have concentrated sufficient power, autonomy and capacity at the centre to shape, pursue and encourage the achievement of explicit developmental objectives, whether by establishing and promoting the conditions and direction of economic growth, or by organizing it directly, or a varying combination of both.

By this we mean really ‘state capitalist’ developmental states, following Gordon White’s three developmental state types: state capitalist, intermediate and state socialist (White 1988).

Some authors have argued that the developmental state is unique to East Asia (Öni 1991, 13). William Cline (1982) has asserted that the Asian model cannot be generalized because of its inherent constraints on international markets i.e. that only a certain number of states can pursues the export-oriented growth model side of the developmental state otherwise everyone else would introduce projectionist barriers to them. The problem with Cline’s argument is that it contradicts our experience after he wrote his paper: the barriers he envisioned actually came down, rather than were erected in the 1980 and 1990s. Other recent work has in fact demonstrated that developmental states are not limited to East Asia but have been achieved elsewhere. In his study of Mauritius, Richard Kearney (1990) found that ‘continuation of NIC (and Mauritian) development presumes effective government macro-economic policy leadership in both monetary and fiscal areas. It further presumes the maintenance of an entrepreneurial climate so that “diversification and exploitation of new manufacturing niches can proceed in the private sector. Government policy choices are critical to development” (1990, 8). Other authors have indeed concluded that Mauritius is a developmental state (Meisenhelder 1997).

What has not worked has also been held up as evidence of the existence of a broad model associated with features of the developmental state. In his study of India, Ronald Herring points out that the aspirations of India’s developmental trajectory were derailed by the very conditions that contributed to success elsewhere: New Delhi was committed to planning and strategic intervention but the state was too soft and embedded to govern the market. State bureaucrats, although generally competent, were too estranged from the business of the market whilst at the same time equally estranged from the broader, poorer population and thus contributed to an erosion of legitimacy that opened the way for economic populists (Herring 1999, 309). In their study of Burkina Faso, Michael Kevane and Pierre Englebert (1999) found that Ougadougou lacked any notable entrepreneurial class of sufficient size, whether domestic or international, to create wealth and generate growth, from which development might be advanced. Looking at Brazil and Mexico, Ben Schneider found that the bureaucracy was a major impediment to the implementation of the developmental state, despite an official ideology proclaiming a commitment to development, as the bureaucracy was a political player in itself and could not act in an administrative fashion á la Weber (Schneider 1999).

Adrian Leftwich has arrived at some defining characteristics of a typical developmental state. According to him, six major components define the developmental state model:

• a determined developmental elite;
• relative autonomy;
• a powerful, competent and insulated bureaucracy;
• a weak and subordinated civil society;
• the effective management of non-state economic interests; and
• legitimacy and performance (Leftwich 1995, 405).

We can say that there appears some form of consensus on the ingredients for a successful developmental state. Evans, in his influential work, agrees that a capable and autonomous bureaucracy that makes use of the market and formulates national goals and that has the competence and resources to implement these goals is crucial (Evans 1995). In a comprehensive review of neo-liberal objections to the developmental state, Ha-Joon Chang argues that successful developmental states have pursued policies that co-ordinate investment plans; have a national development vision implying that the state is an entrepreneurial agent; that engage in institution building to promote growth and development; and that finally, play a role in conflict management, mediating in conflicts that arise out of reactions and counteractions to the development trajectory: between the winners and losers as it were (Chang 1999, 192-199).

In the main, discussions of developmental states have been focussed on Asia. There has been relatively little work on the possibility or applicable lessons from Asia that Africa might learn (Brautigam 1994). This is largely in part due to the “impossibility thesis” that such discussions fall prey to (Mkandawire 1998). There has thus been very little comparative work within Africa on developmental states (for an exception, see Mbabazi and Taylor 2005), something that an OSSREA-led research project would aim to overcome. This would draw on some aspects of the developmental state model crafted in Asia but examining its application, in a comparative framework, in Africa (Stein 1995).

Short-Term Objectives of the Proposed Research Agenda:

1. To analyse the developmental record of selected African states;

2. To seek to explain this record, with reference to the notion of a “developmental state”;

3. To compare and contrast this developmental state with the types of state structures inherited and developed by selected African states in the post-independence period;

4. To explain how and why the type of state structures in other African states developed and how these hampered development in the two countries;

5. To identify what if anything, other African states can learn from selected “African developmental states” such as Botswana and Mauritius; and

6. To formally publish the relevant findings of this research.

The significance of this study has been outlined above. The beneficiaries would be the people and governments of Africa who can evaluate the data generated in judging whether or not African developmental states are a practical possibility. The project is envisaged as being widely distributed and a rather comprehensive audience would be targeted as a means to raise the profile of both the issue of developmental states in Africa and the broader activities and achievements of OSSREA.

Given the intense interest exhibited at the recent Jubilee Conference, it is suggested that work on developmental states in Africa is a key research area that needs exploring and developing.

^{* School of International Relations, University of St. Andrews, St Andrews KY16 9AL, Scotland, United Kingdom. Tel.: +44 (0)1334 462926, Fax.: +44 (0)1334 462937, e-mail: ict@st-and.ac.uk, http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/intrel/staff/it.html}

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