A Review of William Tordoffs Government and Politics in Africa: Ideology, the PostColonial State, and Development

hapter Ten in William Tordoffs Government and Politics in Africa provides a broad conclusion of his master piece. He concludes this discussion by examining the concepts of

ideology and development. These two concepts are fundamentally different, albeit related in application insofar as this discussion is concerned; however, in this discussion he tried not to conflate the two. Whereas he gives several definitions for ideology, as posited by different scholars, he also contends that conceptual underpinning makes it very difficult to discern the difference between what is ideological and what is not. For the latter, the conceptual understanding of development is equally more complex. As Western concept it is expressed in-terms of economic outlook, albeit the indifference among economists, in defining economic growth and measuring it as well. Later theorists and economic practitioners began to appreciate that it was inadequate to use the West (or former Soviet Union) as a yard stick to measure development in the African context. Furthermore, this does not presuppose that (earlier) interaction between the developed nations and Africa as un-important. It is indeed important, but Africa should not be misconstrued as mere pawn in the international chase board. Likewise Riggs argues that Africa should be studied within its unique niche. For Tordoff, encompasses however, development is multifaceted it social, political, administrative, and economic,

international dimensions. The above overview provided thrust for Tordoff to juxtapose ideology and development in African setting. For each type of regime in Africa, 1

ideology was only useful to the extent that it enabled leadership to instill some sense of direction. However, he noted that ideology could instill sense of direction and purpose among adherents, or become economic straight jacket when rigidly applied as were the case of Sekou Toures Guinea, and by contrast, pragmatic if applied for long term course.1 Moreover, he drew a conceptual contrast of ideology and development from Crawford Young2 thoughts, particularly his evaluation performance criterion. These criterions include growth, equality, autonomy, human dignity, popular participation, and state capacity. To this end, Tordoff contends that development premised on effectiveness and capacities of public institutions provide a convergence point for the three regime types. Furthermore, Marxist economies such as Mozambique, Angola,

Ethiopia, and the strife prone Somalia performed poorly, large because, their transformation was premised on command economy, centricity in planning and development of extensive state sector. Failure arising out this morass necessitated dramatic on shift ideological commitment, often to a more liberal market economy. Even so, some populist socialist states at the time such as Algeria and Egypt performed better. By contrast, capitalist societies failed to realize a spectacular growth in the 1980s period as were the case in the 1960s and 70s period. In addition, comparative performance on the basis of Gross National Product (GNP) is often misleading because of baseline differences and statistical anomaly in many countries.

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e also noted a fairly interesting paradox, whereas economic decline in the 1908s made it difficult for socialist states to maintain high levels of social services health and education

Nyereres post 1967 Tanzania embraced communal production. Young authored Ideology and Development in Africa which examined these two concepts broadly.

 as were introduced at independence. Equality as conceptualized by Julius Nyerere had become elusive and resources distribution was therefore low in Tanzania and other socialist countries, while on the contrary, distribution was higher in capitalistic state, say, Kenya and Cote dIviore for instance. But in the case of mineral endowed economies a sharp fall in world markets often caused stagnated growths in capitalist societies, notably Nigeria and Zambia. Here he contends again, there is no close correlation between autonomy and ideology, however, all regimes are likely to pursue antithetical polices which are incongruent to the interest of international backers. But nonetheless, the close relationship continued to mark the basis of state development policies amongst capitalist states in Africa, notably Kenya among others. By contrast, countries such as Tanzania and Mozambique yielded to international pressure and subsequent changes in government policy orientation enjoined them in international monitory institution, in this case World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). Even so, decentralization measures introduced in Tanzania and Zambia had precisely opposite effect: they increased control central control and, except at village level in Tanzania, reduced opportunities for citizen participation. In addition, the introduction of political parties in various segments of Africa, created room for various reforms, furthermore, Tordoff agreed with Youngs assertion that state capacity is, fundamental to all development designs. In contrast, he noted, that it was difficult to compare on state achievement by merely enlarging that states capacity with another. However, for him, measuring performance by this criterion must encompass many other factors, including colonial legacy. He also noted that, although the demand of state capacity has been instrumental, evident in early independence days and questioned Nyereres argument then, that, no 3

under developed country can afford to be anything but socialism. Indeed, development model so desired severely strain the existing public institutions, albeit the World Bank proposal for total overhaul these sectors in order to raise the level of performance. But for Tordoff, this remedial measure was fraught with so many difficulties.

ut as to whether ideology matters or not?

Tordoff observes

that it does, more so, in guiding development strategy which states adopt. However, there is little doubt on whether

capitalistic African states register better economic progress vis--vis limited goals they pursue, and to a larger extent better than socialist states. But when it comes to measuring performance, there is little to be chosen between regime types, he posited. Again, for him, on the basis of Youngs viewpoint, regime performance is not based on ideological commitment alone, but an account of other factors needs to be taken into account. Moreover, all regimes irrespective of ideological persuasion have faced internal and external constraints to development. On external constraints of development, Tordoff conceived three broad issues, notably the problem of debt, economic reform, and state autonomy. First, problem of debt become evident when Africa was incorporated into the global economy dominated the capitalistic countries in the northern hemisphere. This domination for Tordoff, created a dependent relationship that continued to manifest after independence. For non-oil producing countries, that sharp increase in oil prices from 1973 onwards created serious imbalance of payments and most nations subsequently accumulated substantial foreign debts. This was as a consequence of banks awash with billions of Middle East petrodollars which continued, at the time, to lend heavily to both oil and non-oil producing countries. Furthermore, he noted that bank 4

interest rates were initially low but later rose due to inflation. The net effect therefore, caused African and other Third world countries to carry a crippling debt burden. Unfortunately, in contrast, the price of goods which they produced for export plunged low in the world market. In addition, to these commercial and multilateral debts, he noted that there were official bilateral debts. This bore heavily on poor countries, and the cumulative effects of all kinds of debts was devastating for most economies irrespective of their ideological orientations. Interestingly even some oil producing countries in Africa could no longer meet their debt burdens. In spite of these anathema that had bedeviled Africa and other Third world economies, Tordoff notes, that these states were obliged to accept IMF imposed conditions such as: devaluations, subsidies, cuts in public spending and removal of urban subsidies. Second, Tordoff sees economic reforms on different perspective. Several states had seen the need to redefine the state role in the economy.3 Here reform options, gained impetus from World Bank pressure; it had started to replace project loans to debtor less developed countries (LDCs) with new structural and sectoral advancement facilities. According Tordoff, countries were required either overhaul and public make enterprises them which or had poor record of performance efficient, denationalize them.

However, privatization process has been slow largely due to both economic and non-economic factors. But more importantly, the failure of success of privatization of state franchise failed because government tended to privatize non-viable
In his perceptive essay on States and Markets in Africa Ralph A. Young pointed out that several regimes had themselves recognized the need to redefine the state role in the economy.
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entities; difficulty in putting up administrative machinery; and even so, impact of privatization has been uneven. Thirdly, state autonomy, suffered from impact of dictate policy of the international players, for Tordoff this exercise infringed the sovereignty of African states and to larger extent this institutions impressed other socialist states to become pragmatic in their approach. Further, lack of management and technological skills among African states, not only made them vulnerable to both World Bank and other financial institutions but also on Multinationals National Companies (MNCs).

ordoff also examined internal constraint on development, and these constraints tended to manifest independently of ideological persuasion or with ideology in the marginal sense. In

this regard he noted that lack of administrative, managerial skills, as result of inadequate colonial education and training programmes, caused some to suffer severe shortage. Some countries like Zaire had only 16 graduates by 1960. Similarly some countries, like Angola and Mozambique, which gained independence through protracted liberation struggle also suffered, but more severely from this human resource constraint. This shortage was also manifest in private entrepreneurship. Furthermore, the move to adopt policies which subsidies were introduced in the urban sector at the expense of the rural economy, causing mass migration from to urban centres. For Tordoff, the corollary of this shift caused a major fall in agriculture as able bodied people drifted to towns, which were acutely problematic feature of life in South Africas homelands.

Most African states whose rulers were paranoid, self seeking and interested self enrichment, including able and well-intentioned leaders, Nyerere and Kaunda, become authoritarian and subsequently shifted focus from economic morass bedeviling their respective countries. To this end, Tordoff held that the differences between policies pursued by these two broad type of regimes in Africa Capitalist and Socialist were not fundamentally different. This was so because of both internal and external constrains caused most regimes to adopt more pragmatic paradigms or economic realism.

ccordingly, development prospects for Africa could be casted on three broad steps. First, for Tordoff, utilization of regional economic block was critical to help various nations to avoid

wasteful duplication of projects since ideological orientations have lost importance. Second, since African economies are predominantly agriculture steps should be taken to stem this existing decline, for example currency devaluation, substantial increase in produce prices paid to farmers, and so on. Here, he strongly, contends with Arthur Lewis4 advice that the precondition for industrialization was a strong agricultural base. Third, establishment of a new international economic order (NIEO), for him, unless this was realized Africa and other Third Worlds states will financially dependent on western dominated IMF, World bank and MNCs. However, the flipside of it, he notes that debt reprieves were sanctioned by Paris Club of creditors but on basis of economic reforms. This therefore means that the problem of debt make African states more vulnerable and part of interdependent world, and thus cannot divorce from this system even if they wished.
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Arthur Lewis, the West Indian development economist, who gave advice to Ghanaian government in 1953.

The above cannot be gainsaid; however, Tordoff has endeavoured to show that the prospects of democracy taking root in Africa have been varied as the historical experience of its many states, say, with few exceptions. In addition, good government and economic development, he observed, do not necessarily go hand in hand. By contrast, western governments need to be restrained in political conditions which they impose as the price for according development aid to Africa. For him, democratic practices in Africa must be nurtured from within rather than imposed unrealistically from without. November 21, 2011