Africa's Stalled Development: International Causes and Cures

David K. Leonard and Scott Strauss. Africa's Stalled Development: International Causes and Cures. Boulder, CoIo.: Lynne Rienner, 2003. Bibliography. Index. $42.00. Cloth. $17.95. Paper.

Africa 's Stalled Development is an accessible and valuable contribution to the literature on Africa's troubled political economy. As the elaboration of a series of lectures first delivered by one of the authors, the book provides a concise summary of key debates in African politics: endemic poverty, administrative weakness, and violent ethnic conflict. Although the text is unlikely to redefine Africanists' understanding of African states and societies, the authors' central thesis is sensible and, especially for those first acquainting themselves with the continent's politics, subtly provocative.

Rather than relying on culturalist arguments to explain sub-Saharan Africa's seemingly endemic poverty, patronage, and political instability, Leonard and Strauss posit that the root of the continent's frail states is to be found in the history of their formation and subsequent incorporation into the international economy. These processes, they argue, have resulted in the creation of weak and poorly embedded politico-administrative institutions and, more important, in the pervasiveness of enclave production. As a result, "revenue generation is physically confined to small areas, and the main markets are external, thus making the general economic health of areas outside the enclave quite secondary, if not irrelevant" (13). Enclave production provides no incentives for leaders to establish popular legitimacy through programmatic reform or a strong developmental agenda. Instead, leaders can rely on taxes or rents from exports to sustain themselves. Worse still, the physical sites for enclave production-mines, oil rigs, or concentrated agricultural estates-are easy targets for would-be rebel groups. And having once experienced conflict, the potential for repeated violence is greatly increased. all of these problems, combined with the failures of international aid, which does little more than keep African countries out of bankruptcy, have led to the crises that beset the continent. At various points throughout the book, especially in two chapters written exclusively by David Leonard on technical assistance and foreign humanitarian (military) intervention, the authors offer concrete proposals for remedying the situations they have identified. Although self-admittedly idealistic, these suggestions are well reasoned, based on solid evidence, and thought-provoking.

At the same time, the authors are determined to normalize the study of African politics, first by making the subject intelligible, then by making it highly visible to an American academic audience. While these goals are welcome, two elements of their approach threaten to undermine their efforts. The first is the authors' vigorous acceptance of American political science's craving for monocausal explanations, in this case enclave production as the root of almost all of the continent's problems. While this structuralist argument provides considerable purchase, it occasionally falls short. To their credit, the authors recognize their inability to explain the Rwandan genocide or conflicts in non-enclave-based economies. Furthermore, their emphasis ignores the role of particular leaders or ideologies. More important, it steers readers away from other social phenomena that are becoming increasingly significant, especially given the economic and political conditions described: for example, local and transnational religious movements and the far-reaching effects of HIV/AIDS. Much as these may be linked to Africa's failing states, they deserve to be considered as causal factors in their own right.

Second, the authors' awareness that provocative books are more likely to be noticed by both an academic and a policy-making audience occasionally leads them to overstate charges of institutional and political racism. Although such racism surely exists, the use of such language may harm rather than help their cause. For one thing, it risks lumping the authors' sensible arguments with an unfortunate body of literature blaming racist or economic conspiracies for Africa's problems. As Leonard and Strauss rightly note, there is little evidence that "the developed world derives much benefit from Africa's present condition" (103). In addition, although Africa's relationship with the West is unique, it is not necessarily racism that drives Western policy-makers' attitudes toward the continent. Accusations of racism imply a kind of consciousness that charges of ignorance, myopia, or narrow self-interest do not. When we compare the dominant political discourse on other world regions-the former Soviet Union, the Baltics, and the Middle East, for example-it seems likely that the latter set of factors goes further than racism per se in explaining Western policy. These failings may not garner as much initial attention as charges of racism. But if the authors had based their case simply on the soundness of their arguments, their text would have accomplished more effectively the important task of integrating the study of African political economy into broader social scientific and policy debates.