Season of Rains by Stephen Ellis

Author:Stephen Ellis [Ellis, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Business & Economics, Economic Conditions, History, Africa, General, Political Science, Globalization, Social Science, Anthropology, Cultural & Social, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9780226205595
Google: a6Nlq1qu1_oC
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2012-04-15T03:59:52+00:00

5

MATTERS OF STATE

The sovereign status acquired by most African countries in the 1960s was not a milestone in a process of becoming less dependent on the rich world. On the contrary, as measured by debt, imports and a number of other yardsticks, Africa’s economic and financial dependence was established in the second quarter of the twentieth century and has grown steadily ever since. The much-vaunted independence of African states is an ideology rather than a description of a political or economic mode of existence.

If the combination of sovereign status plus dependence has nevertheless lasted for half a century, it is for a reason. It creates advantages for some Africans and their foreign partners. But it also comes at a cost. Not least, it is demeaning to the point that hundreds of millions of people have become convinced that under the current dispensation they cannot take control of their own destiny in the ways most familiar to them.

It is useful to bear this observation in mind in considering the wider effects of the financial crisis that began in 2007. Every commentator has noted China’s arrival as a superpower, although the US will surely remain the world’s foremost military power for the foreseeable future, vulnerable to irregular warfare but not to conventional operations. The dollar is currently irreplaceable as the world’s key marker of value, used for pricing international commodities. Whatever else happens to the US’s debt-burdened economy, the country is likely to remain a powerhouse of knowledge and innovation. China is a country without democracy or freedom of speech. It is unclear whether it is capable of inventing and developing a new Google.

Since the onset of the crisis, media pundits and television-friendly academics have been offering practical suggestions for changes in the institutional arrangements that govern international affairs. Most of these go in the general direction of loosening the grip on international institutions maintained since 1945 by the USA and the Europeans and increasing the representation of emerging powers, notably in Asia. In regard to the UN Security Council, for years there has been pressure to expand its permanent membership, ‘deep-frozen in time’,1 from the present five countries, the victors of a world war that ended over sixty years ago. But every specific proposal for reform of the Security Council encounters formidable obstacles. Meanwhile, some commentators call for the US and China to form a Group of Two to meet regularly with a view to managing the world’s finances. Going in the opposite direction as far as size is concerned, the Group of Eight major economies has expanded into a Group of Twenty (G-20) whose meetings in fact are attended by more than twenty countries, including China, India, Brazil and South Africa.

In practice, the most seemingly monolithic institutions are constantly changing even when their formal rules and external appearance remain untouched. After all, institutions consist of people. Each new generation brings fresh ideas about the right and proper way to do things even as the old guard transmits some of its knowledge and working practices to the newcomers, providing continuity.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.