States

Question 1

What is the state

Answer 1

A form of organised domination that delivers order
and public goods
- neoclassical economics says
its something that corrects market failures

Question 2

How are resources distributed?

Answer 2

1) The market where it is exchanged for goods and services
2) Hierarchies where someone at the top distributes it
3) Team/networks circulate resources

Question 3

What are roles of the state?

Answer 3

• Importance of state in the provision of “Public Goods” (Goods that are non-rival and non-excludable) (e.g. knowledge, Defiance, infrastructure
• “Governing” the market

Question 4

What are determinants of the state’s role in development?

Answer 4

1) Ideas and intentionality
• Nationalism
• Various “socialist” ideologies (Ujamaa, African Humanism etc) • Developmentalism and “catch- up
• Economic ideas – “Big” Development ideas

2) Interests
• New bureaucratic classes
• Private capital seeking state support • Individual leaders – problems of national heroes

3) Institutions
• One-party state

4) Industrialisation
5) International context

Question 5

What are the origins of the state?

Answer 5

• in the Sub-Sahara African case, with the
exception of Ethiopia the origins of the state are
largely colonial • The nationalist faced the challenge of finding
new capacity to address issues close their hearts
• The need to reconcile the desire to dismantle
the colonial state and to deploy its capacity to
maintain low and order

Question 6

What was nature of colonial state?

Answer 6

Different levels of extractive capacity
• Labour reserve economy
• Cash crop economy
• Concensions economy
• Differences between Direct and indirect rule (Colonialism on the
cheap) • Differences in the racial attitudes of the colonial masters

Question 7

What are challenges of new nation states?

Answer 7

Continuation of the colonial institutional order 
• Neocolonialism and decolonization
• Nation-building
• Legitimacy
• Extending its reach
• National Cohesion
• Economic Development 
• International Context and national sovereignty

Question 8

How are development and democracy linked?

Answer 8

• Ideas about development and democracy
• The linear view of democracy as end point of modernisation
• Democracy could only be possible after passing some threshold of development

Question 9

What are critiques of POCO state?

Answer 9

1. dependence school/ neomarxist school

2. rational choice school

Question 10

what does dependence school argue against POCO states?

Answer 10

-POCO states failed to break colonial hold

• Betrayal of nationalist ideology by elites

Question 11

What are rational choice school critiques of POCO states?

Answer 11

• liberal economics is good, so why aren’t African leaders doing what is obviously good?
• Argued that they were Rent seekers blocking good policies
• Introducing policies harmful for development
• Policies that favoured inefficient industry

Question 12

What is rent-seeking?

Answer 12

• an attempt to obtain economic rent by manipulating the social or political environment in which economic activities occur, rather than by creating new wealth
• Bribing officials to obtain exclusive licence, , spending money on political lobbying in order to be given a share of wealth that has already been created.

Question 13

What is neopatrimonial critique of state?

Answer 13

-Officials hold positions in bureaucratic organisations
with powers which are formally defined, but exercise those powers . . . as a form . . . of private
property.”
- Neopatrimonialism leads to condoning of corruption
• Elites instrumentalise chaos and create spaces for corruption
• Diversion of public resources to personal use undermines
development

Question 14

what is the good governance argument?

Answer 14

• In 1989 World Bank identified ”Good Goverance” as main constraints on development in Africa
• describes how public institutions conduct public affairs and manage public resources in the preferred way.
• says bad institutions is why there is no foreign investment despite good policies, and SAPs issue of GG

Question 15

What is the developmental state?

Answer 15

○ The answer for Africa was some kind of developmental state
Features
1) Ideological aim at catching up and developing
2) Structural features
- building capacity to implement economic policies effectively, embeddedness to society to not be predatory

Question 16

Issues of neopat argument

Answer 16

○ Part of the discussion of neopatrimonialism and rent seeking was during the decline
○ When it started to recover there were problems for neopatrimonialism theorists who couldn’t explain this recovery

Question 17

what are the two types of economies?

Answer 17

rentier economy and merchant state

Question 18

what is a rentier economy?

Answer 18

• A rentier economy is an economy which relies on “substantial
external rent”. 
• Politically salient point is that
revenues flow directly into the
state treasury without requiring
complex negotiations among
representatives of the political
coalitions that provide the social basis of the regime
- normally oils and minerals

Question 19

what is merchant state?

Answer 19

• states tax populations at large
• the merchant state “rent” is internal to the economy’s overall productive structure. The state relies heavily on domestic taxes and on export and import taxes.

• Politically salient is the fact that the larger position of the state’s revenue is collected directly or indirectly from a large number of producers. In Africa, the export taxes are usually imposed on commodities that are largely produced by peasant households

Question 20

what is state society nexus?

Answer 20

societal strength defined by capacity of political contestation

merchant state, weak political contestation: malawi

Merchant state, strong political contestation: kenya, senegal

rentier state, weak political contestation: botswana, gabon

rentier state, strong political contestation: zambia, nigeria

Question 21

state capacity

Answer 21

• varies over time
• determined by structural constraints, initial conditions, interests

-

Question 22

What does Brett argue?

Answer 22

In both Uganda and Zimbabwe
○ At independence - new governments needed to buy political support by transferring resources from immigrant to African communities, while retaining immigrant capital to sustain growth
○ Africanised the civil service and maintained immigrant business
○ Transfers economically damaging, and due to pressures from population
○ Uganda and Zimbabwe regimes run by elites that had been excluded from capitalist class by foreigners, and planned to use state power to take over civil service and parastatals, and use redistributive taxation to provide services to the poor
○ Regimes discouraged African entrepreneurship, clientelism occurred
growth under corporatist strategies was unsustainable in both countries and market strategies didn’t succeed in Uganda until after 86
□ Periods of responsible and successful development disprove neopatrimonial claims, and regressive periods confirm them

Question 23

What are three roles of the state?

Answer 23

Brett

1) Make and enforce general social rules and maintain social unity by sustaining institutions that allow conflicting social interests to be expressed and managed
2) Produce public goods by creating an administrative apparatus that supplies private agents with essential services
3) Provide regulatory framework that governs the terms on which private and public enterprises relate to each other, generate livelihoods and provide the taxes required to finance the state apparatus

Question 24

How important are structural conditions to growth?

Answer 24

Ha Joon Chang
○ Structural conditions seem to act as impediments to development in Africa only because its countries do not yet have the necessary technologies, institutions and organizational skills to deal with their adverse consequences
○ The real cause of African stagnation in the last 3 decades is free-market policies that the continent has been compelled to implement during the period
○ Africa is not destined for underdevelopment
○ Structural conditions = defined by nature, climate, geography and natural resources

Question 25

Issue with SAPs?

Answer 25

Ha Joon Change
○ SF can’t explain why Africa used to grow at a decent rate in the 60s and 70s then suddenly failed to grow
○ The sudden collapse in growth must be explained by something that happened around 1980
○ SSA countries in late 70s forced to adopt free market, free trade policies through the conditions imposed by the so-called SAPs of the WB and IMF
○ Not good for economic development
○ Exposed immature producers to international competition collapsed little industrial sectors
Forced back into relying on raw materials

Question 26

Initial conditions of Botswana?

Answer 26

Selolwane
○ Among the key factors that shaped the character of Botswana’s formation were the limited presence of colonial administration and the territory’s transformation into a labour reserve economy
○ Colonial powers indirectly ruled through the traditional authorities
○ The state overcame the colonial legacy of poverty, skeletal administrative institutions, and a labour reserve economy to become a viable state nation
- from labour reserve economy to cattle beef industry
○ 40% of the male labour force was engaged in South African mines in independence (66)
○ Years of drought killed 1/3 of cattle, reducing national income to dependence on migrant labour earnings

Question 27

What happened for Botswana to get resource transfer from west?

Answer 27

Selolwane
○ Resource transfer from west in 3 ways:
i. The British anticipated independence and began to release state lands for cattle ranching to white elites and then Africans
ii. Aid agencies giving financial resources
iii. Infrastructural developments that attracted private capital and promised good returns on investment

Question 28

What did Botswana do with cattle?

Answer 28

Selolwane
○ Botswana searched mineral deposits, and invested in modernizing the cattle economy
○ Cattle was leading export earner
○ State shared profits of beef exports with farmers supplying beef
○ Africans negotiate with colonial powers and get ownership of land and productive resources in constitution, enabling a class of commercial cattle ranchers
○ Big leap - discovery of diamonds put them on path of rapid and sustained economic growth

Question 29

How did state develop?

Answer 29

Selolwane
○ State adopted development strategy based on interventionist state participation in the economy and the conventional wisdom that industrialization was the key to rapid and sustainable growth
○ A dominant state sector, planned development intervention, limited local government autonomy, and reliance on one or two primary products for international trade
○ Leaders recognized limited resource base, and carefully planned
○ Didn’t listen to advice to leave industrial development for private investment of West
○ Created development bank and accepted they had little to attract private investment

Question 30

What did Botswana do with diamonds?

Answer 30

Selolwane

• Opportunity to negotiate partnership deals with multinational companies
• 40% of revenues from diamond industry
• Infrastructural development was highly visible and tangible result
• Leadership embarked in rural development program with diamond revenues, built schools, roads, health provision, and agricultural activities
• Distribution of resources shared equally across ethnopolities with even-handedness, so no one though development favoured a certain group

Question 31

What effect did Botswana’s strategy have on economy?

Answer 31

Selolwane
○ Important forms of welfare transfer from state, and infrastructural development changed quality of life in rural areas
○ Infrastructural development had concrete benefit of creating capital formation• Economic slow down and privatization
○ In Botswana in 80s overall growth was maintained
○ Criticized for government involvement in economy
Botswana managed national economy, won confidence of citizens