Africa in the changing international political economy

This study examines the marginalization and peripheralization of Africa in the international political economy in the last two decades. The study posits that the marginalization and peripheralization of Africa should be sought in the structures of production and their relationship to the new international division of labor. We further argue that the structures of production and Africa's role in the international division of labor has become obsolete, leading to the loss of comparative advantage in the production of agricultural raw materials like coffee, cocoa, tea, sisal and cotton, traditional anchors of the economies of many African countries. The mineral producing sectors of many African political economies like copper and other traditional metals, have become uncoupled from the industrial economy due to technological changes which have affected the demand and supply structures of the commodity market. In the process, a new international division of labor has been forged. The process has integrated the economically viable parts of the world system while delinking countries whose structures of production are not oriented to take advantage of the new opportunities.;The study therefore locates the debate about Africa's marginalization and peripheralization in the changing international political economy within the framework and policy prescriptions emanating from the modernization and peripheralization paradigms. A structured focused comparative case study of Ghana, Ivory Coast, Tanzania and Zaire are used to validate the thesis of this dissertation.;The results of the study shows that when a product which integrates a country into the international division of labor is no longer in demand, or is affected by technological changes, and the producing countries fail to adjust their productive structures to fit the forged dynamics, the countries face delinking from the international political economy. Under those circumstances, neither state-centric regimes nor those that follow market dictates are likely to achieve success. This explains the paradoxical development problems of liberal Ivory Coast and kleptomanical Zaire.;This dissertation shows that traditional development theories and policies are losing their foundation. Modernization and Globalization theories are confronted by Kuhnian anomalies and crisis. The anomaly facing modernization theory has to do with the position that closer incorporation into the international political economy is a sine qua non to development. This position ignores the problems of the new international division of labor. Ivory Coast as a paradigmatic case cuts into that argument. Incorporation per se may be necessary but it is certainly not a sufficient condition for growth. Comparative advantage viewed in static terms is a recipe for marginalization and delinking. Change, flexibility and the capacity of the economy to transform itself and to respond to changes in the global economic environment is critical to long term growth. Heavy intervention and autarkic policies do not produce the desired results. In this respect, the proposition that bad policies alone account for the continental wide economic problems is overblown. It is ideologically driven by the precepts of orthodox policies which have asserted their predominance since the 1980s in development circles.;We also rejected a major tenet of globalization theory which advocated delinking as a solution to Africa's underdevelopment problematique. We have shown that delinking should be conceived as a problem and not a panacea. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).