Stefan Andreasson

Conservatism and Postcolonial Politics

Stefan Andreasson — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 08:40:44 PDT

This book provides an updated analysis of conservative political thought and a revision of postcolonial politics, thereby producing a novel theoretical synthesis anchored in comparative case studies of postcolonial Africa and India with significant implications for global politics.

The key argument in this book is that a re-reading through a conservative prism of the scholarly and political postcolonial projects provides a coherent theoretical framework with which best to understand the decolonised world. It provides also a suitable grounding for the ubiquitous yet imprecise notion of postcoloniality. Conservatism, rooted in tradition, hierarchy and duty and sceptical of progressivism and rationality, provides a superior framework for understanding and engaging with the formerly colonised world than do the liberal and socialist foundations on which Western thinking about colonialism initially depended, as in de Tocqueville’s defence of imperialism, the ambivalent views in J S Mill and Marx and the unequivocal critiques of Diderot, Hobson and Lenin.

The focus of this book is theoretical and empirical. Firstly, on postcolonial scholarship seeking to understand the impact of colonialism and how ontological and epistemological underpinnings of Western Enlightenment and modernity circumscribe our understanding of postcolonial societies. Secondly, on social movements in colonised regions aspiring to liberation and emancipation, fomenting decolonisation and defining politics in its wake.

Africa's prospects and South Africa's leadership potential in the emerging markets century

Stefan Andreasson — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 12:50:09 PDT

This article examines Africa’s role in an evolving international system where powerful emerging markets, such as BRIC, together with established powers are shaping economic trajectories. The specific focus is on South Africa as an aspiring leader on the African continent, and on its potential for becoming an emerging market shaping the global order together with BRIC and the West. It is unclear whether a changing global economy in which the postcolonial world plays a greater role will result in improved developmental prospects for Africans as African countries gradually reorient themselves from the West to the South, or whether relations with emerging markets will resemble neo-colonial ties with the West. South Africa’s structural weakness, stemming from serious domestic problems of a social, political and economic nature, threatens to undermine its standing in Africa and its emerging market status.

On the nature of Anglophone conservatism and its applicability to the analysis of postcolonial politics

Stefan Andreasson — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 08:01:02 PDT

This essay examines the nature and development of an Anglophone tradition of conservative political thought (conservatism). It considers how, in contrast to a more reactionary European tradition, conservatism has evolved over time in its variously diverging and converging Anglo-American historical and cultural contexts and what relevance – what analytical utility – this body of political thought may have today for understanding politics and socio-cultural developments in a postcolonial world beyond its Western origins. In considering the relative merits of conservatism as compared to other theoretical approaches, the essay asks whether this conservatism can offer a superior analysis of postcolonial politics by avoiding the pitfalls of the universalizing values on which liberal and Marxist accounts are based.

Africa's Development Impasse: Rethinking the Political Economy of Transformation

Stefan Andreasson — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 04:26:19 PDT

Orthodox strategies for socio-economic development have failed spectacularly in Southern Africa. Neither the developmental state nor neoliberal reform seems able to provide a solution to Africa's problems.

In Africa's Development Impasse, Stefan Andreasson analyses this failure and explores the potential for post-development alternatives. Examining the post-independence trajectories of Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa, the book shows three different examples of this failure to overcome a debilitating colonial legacy. Andreasson then argues that it is now time to resuscitate post-development theory's challenge to conventional development. In doing this, he claims, we face the enormous challenge of translating post-development into actual politics for a socially and politically sustainable future and using it as a dialogue about what the aims and aspirations of post-colonial societies might become.

This important fusion of theory with empirical case studies will be essential reading for students of development politics and Africa.

Confronting the Settler Legacy: Indigenisation and Transformation in South Africa and Zimbabwe

Stefan Andreasson — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 14:54:17 PST

This article examines attempts to negotiate a perceived residual dominance of settler populations in South Africa and Zimbabwe by means of developmental and cultural policies deemed necessary to restore sovereignty to Africans. Indigenisation has become a preferred strategy for reconstructing post-colonial states in Africa: indigenisation of the economy as part of a Third Chimurenga in Zimbabwe and Black Economic Empowerment in the socio-cultural context of Ubuntu in South Africa. These are issues arising from the regional legacy of contested and uneven transitions to majority rule. Identifying how governments frame the ‘settler problem’, and politicise space in doing so, is crucial for understanding post-colonial politics. Indigenisation in Zimbabwe allows the government to maintain a network of patronage and official rhetoric, and is highly divisive and exclusivist although couched in terms of reclaiming African values and sovereignty. Revival of Ubuntu as a cultural value system in South Africa facilitates a more positive approach to indigenisation, although Black Economic Empowerment displays elitist tendencies and cultural transformation remains controversial and elusive. The perceived need to anchor policy in socially acceptable (i.e., ostensibly indigenous/traditional) contexts has become a prominent feature of post-colonial politics and is indicative of an indigenous turn in Southern African politics.

Keywords: South Africa, Zimbabwe, indigeneity, colonialism, sovereignty, transformation

The Resilience of Comprador Capitalism: “New” Economic Groups in Southern Africa

Stefan Andreasson — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 09:35:00 PDT

This chapter examines the emergence of new economic groups in South Africa and Zimbabwe in the context of “paternalistic trusteeship” by governments themselves or by old economic groups managing to retain economic and political influence and aiming to forge stable and mutually profitable relations with new economic elites. New economic actors emerge when political and economic liberalization increases “points of entry” to economic (and political) activity for those previously marginalized or barred from entry. A key point of contention in the debate on the aims and roles of these groups is whether old, entrenched economic groups are simply in the business of “grooming” a new comprador class to serve (or at least not actively oppose) their interests, or if they are indeed making an effort to facilitate empowerment by engaging with and supporting the new economic groups emerging as a result of political and economic liberalization.

Taken together, experiences in these two countries provide a nuanced picture of the opportunities and difficulties governments face when attempting to manage oftentimes cross-cutting pressures from businesses and civil society. The two “case studies” examine interactions between key economic and political actors in each country and their preferences with regard to policies governing economic and sociopolitical transformation. Both economic groups and governments have inevitably become transformed (in terms of policy preferences and strategies) by the many changes sweeping across the region in recent decades.

The Political Economy of Corporate Governance in South Africa

Stefan Andreasson — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 09:22:22 PDT

This article examines the political and economic context of corporate governance reform in post-apartheid South Africa. It does so by situating the debate on corporate governance in a wider political economy context, ultimately anchored in the varieties of capitalism literature and emerging research in IPE on global pressures for convergence of corporate governance practices worldwide. In particular, the article examines how the Southern African political economy and global actors shape societal debates on corporate governance; what the role of the King Reports on Corporate Governance are in the reform process and ensuing legislation; and whether South Africa can construct a system of corporate governance that takes into consideration both economic and social outcomes. The findings suggest that while those in charge of corporate governance reform in South Africa face pressures on policy decisions that are present across the Global South, it is also the case that the debate about shareholder v stakeholder rights, and whether ‘best practice’ in corporate governance can be aligned with urgent political and social pressures for socio-economic transformation of society, is particularly salient in emerging markets with a legacy of uneven development and social conflict.

Understanding corporate governance reform in South Africa: Anglo-American divergence, the King reports and hybridization

Stefan Andreasson — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 09:19:21 PDT

This article investigates corporate governance reform in South Africa in the context of the country’s international links with Anglo-American corporate governance and domestic pursuit of socio-economic development. Two key questions are evaluated. 1) How has divergence within the Anglo-American model influenced corporate governance reform in South Africa? 2) Can South Africa’s historical closeness to the Anglo-American model be combined with increasing attention to stakeholder issues to produce a hybrid “African model” of corporate governance? Evaluating these questions, the following issues are explored in turn: the contrast between shareholder and stakeholder models; divergence between US and UK approaches to corporate governance as exemplified by Sarbanes-Oxley; locating a South African approach in context of the Anglo-American model; the King reports and an emerging “African” model of corporate governance; and the role of international and domestic factors in shaping South Africa’s ongoing reform process.

Can the “developmental state” save southern Africa?

Stefan Andreasson — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 06:02:55 PDT

Divergent Paths of Development: The Modern World-System and Democratization in South Africa and Zambia

Stefan Andreasson — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 05:28:48 PDT

This article examines whether a Modern World-Systems (MWS) perspective can provide an improved understanding of the processes of democratization in Africa (and other developing regions of the world) by conducting a comparative case study of South Africa and Zambia in the 1990s, examining the transitions to democracy and divergent processes of democratic consolidation in each country. Semi-peripheral South Africa has, due to its more advantageous position in the world-system, been better equipped than peripheral Zambia to safeguard democracy against erosion and reversal. The central irony of the MWS is that the weakest states in the MWS can be pushed around by core powers and are more easily forced to democratize while at the same time they are least likely to possess the resources necessary for democratic consolidation. Semi-peripheral states can maintain their independence vis-à-vis the core to a higher degree, but if the decision is made to undertake a democratic transition they are more likely to possess the resources necessary for successful consolidation. The MWS perspective allows for an improved understanding of the causal pathway of how position in the MWS translates into the ability to consolidate democracy than does approaches that emphasize domestic factors.

Economic Reforms and ‘Virtual Democracy’ in South Africa and Zimbabwe: The Incompatibility of Liberalisation, Inclusion and Development

Stefan Andreasson — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 05:22:01 PDT

Following two decades of ‘neoliberal’ reforms in the global South, development goals have not been achieved. Firstly, neoliberal reforms aggravate exclusionary tendencies in emerging democracies, resulting in ‘virtual democracy’ where both vertical and horizontal accountability is eroded. Secondly, where virtual democracy is well advanced, the societal pressures generated by neoliberal reforms can cause a complete breakdown of democracy. Thirdly, the virtual democracy perpetuates underdevelopment in poor countries unable to resist, or negotiate, the terms of global economic pressures for reform. Political and socioeconomic trajectories in the 1990s in South Africa and Zimbabwe, respectively, are representative of the first and second propositions, and developments in both countries are symptomatic of the third proposition. Virtual democracy and perpetuation of underdevelopment are logical outcomes of neoliberal reforms.

Accumulation and Growth to What End? Reassessing the Modern Faith in Progress in the “Age of Development”

Stefan Andreasson — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 14:29:16 PDT

Orientalism and African development studies: the ‘reductive repetition’ motif in theories of African underdevelopment

Stefan Andreasson — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 14:15:27 PDT

Contemporary Africa is generally depicted as a ‘failure’. ‘Progress’ has eluded the continent throughout the twentieth century, and despite new ways of thinking about the reasons for failure and possibilities for success, allusions to the ‘natural weakness and incapacity’ of Africans and their social realities remain evident in theoretical, policy and political discourse on development in Africa. The practice of ‘reductive repetition’, as identified by Abdallah Laroui and Edward Said, has been imported into African development studies from Orientalist scholarship. Reductive repetition reduces the diversity of African historical experiences and trajectories, socio-cultural contexts and political situations into a set of core deficiencies for which externally generated ‘solutions’ must be devised. In the field of development studies, the notion of development is introduced to Africa as deus ex machina. In this article, modern conceptualisations of development are challenged in three steps. First, it traces the history of development discourse over the post-Berlin Conference colonial and post-WWII development eras, suggesting that while rhetoric of racial and cultural inferiority has been transformed the notion of African deficiency remains at the conceptual and discursive levels. Second, the primarily liberal idea that ‘development for all’ is possible is challenged as being an ecological and economic, and therefore also social, impossibility. Third, given the problems of growth-based development the article suggests that modern development theory ought to give way to post-developmental thinking which challenges standard a priori assumptions regarding rationality, linearity and modernity, thus offering some modest hope for a move ‘beyond’ the current development impasse.

The ANC and Its Critics: ‘Predatory Liberalism’, Black Empowerment and Intra-Alliance Tensions in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Stefan Andreasson — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 14:09:46 PDT

Post-apartheid South Africa is characterized by centralized, neoliberal policymaking that perpetuates, and in some cases exaggerates, socioeconomic inequalities inherited from the apartheid era. The ANC leadership’s alignment with powerful international and domestic market actors produces tensions within the Tripartite Alliance and between government and civil society. Consequently, several characteristics of ‘predatory liberalism’ are evident in contemporary South Africa: Neoliberal restructuring of the economy is combined with an increasing willingness by government to assert its authority, to marginalize and delegitimize those critical of its abandonment of inclusive governance. A new form of oligarch power, combining entrenched economic interests with those of a new ‘black bourgeoisie’ promoted by narrowly implemented Black Economic Empowerment policies, diminishes prospects for broad-based socioeconomic transformation. Because the new policy environment is failing to resolve tensions between global market demands for increasing market liberalization and domestic popular demands for poverty-alleviation and socioeconomic transformation, the ANC leadership is increasingly forced to confront ‘ultra-Leftists’ that are challenging its credentials as defender of the National Democratic Revolution which was the cornerstone in the anti-apartheid struggle.

Stand and Deliver: Private Property and the Politics of Global Dispossession

Stefan Andreasson — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 14:00:55 PDT

Property rights necessarily generate violent, and oftentimes lethal, processes of dispossession. While liberal theorists from Locke to Hayek consider property rights an essential and emancipatory component of human freedom, they fail to consider societal power asymmetries impeding the ability of property rights to protect interests of the weak and marginalised. If property rights produce freedom and prosperity, they do so very selectively. More obvious is the ongoing historical process of already propertied classes making ‘clever usurpation into an irrevocable right’ by extending private property regimes along two key dimensions – type and space. Examining various uses of private property over time reveals processes whereby relatively basic notions of private property, enforced by a Weberian state at the local level in the early era of industrialisation, are extended to encompass new and sophisticated forms of property that are enforced globally via international institutions. Two contemporary empirical cases of using property rights are examined in this article: land reform in Southern Africa (specifically Zimbabwe) and intellectual property rights. In this context of ongoing dispossession, further privatisation and commodification can only exacerbate contemporary problems of marginalisation and dispossession.