From Ken Opalo:
Common misconceptions about economic policies in African countries tend to be nationalistic, far-left and anti-market. This is not supported by the data (see examples from Kenya, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire and South Africa below). In fact, most governments in the region tend to actively adopt apolitical “best practices” that essentially correspond to center-right economic orthodoxy. If you add to this their social policies, Modal African governments are essentially centre-right. What these countries often fail to do is implement (partly because their policies are rarely useful in context or because state capacity is weak).
this:
Third, lack of governance experience and decades of state repression have led to distorted anti-statist discourse and politics of the African left. Among left-wing intellectuals, the colonial origins of African countries were used as a reason to permanently delegitimize nation-building (many of these same intellectuals suffered state repression). Interpreted this way, African nations can never overcome the original sin of their colonial origins. And it should be abolished and replaced by a pan-African state (perhaps better at exercising coercion and providing public goods and services). At the same time, many economically emerging Africans who broadly sympathize with left-wing politics harbor anti-statist sentiments when it comes to the economy and tend to exaggerate the statist origins of Africa’s economic underdevelopment. region. The reality, of course, is that governance in African countries is very poor. All data on security and law enforcement, registration of births and deaths, levels of education, taxation, expenditure absorption, economic regulation, etc. point to the fact that modern African states are too small and weak to meet the challenges of modern economies and economies. politics.
here is much more. I’m not sure how much the left-wing vs. right-wing framing applies to Africa. Sometimes, I think a better category is “prioritizing whether things go well or not,” as part of the author’s remarks indicates.
