How realistic is the risk of political upheaval in Africa and what can be done about it?
Two weeks
ago, I was in Nairobi, Kenya to attend a conference on Africa’s
political risk profile. The moderator of the first session posed four
questions for discussion: Is stability more important than freedom? Is
the raw material for the Arab Spring available in Africa? Has the Arab
Spring changed the political risk profile of Africa and how? How do you
invest in Africa in the context of crony capitalism? These were
challenging questions whose answers depend as much on the objective
conditions on our continent as on the attitudes and agenda of any
analyst.
Are the
objective conditions for an Arab Spring present in Africa? Yes and no.
By the spring of 2011, Arab nations had sustained economic growth for
almost two decades, had invested heavily in education, facilitated the
penetration of modern communication technology like mobile phones and
internet, but were facing a youth bulge, increasing joblessness among
the youths and social and political frustrations among their middle
class. In many ways, these conditions exist in Africa today in varying
degrees.
However,
the existence of the right structural conditions does not automatically
create mass uprisings. You need agency (leaders or demagogues and
political organisation) to generate an uprising. Structural conditions
are social dynamite; leadership and organisation, the detonator. Hence,
popular discontent needs to find or produce organised political
expression for it to lead to revolution.
Now, the
right structural conditions do not automatically produce agency i.e. the
demand for revolution does not inevitably produce the supply of leaders
and political organisations to guide it. Sometimes, popular discontent
can generate political agitation and disturbance. But without organised
political expression and effective leadership, mass insurrection would
be little more than mob action. Mobs don’t build things; they destroy
them. Of course mob anger can create the right incentives for people
with leadership and organisational skills to join and guide it
purposefully towards a particular political objective. But this is not
automatic.
The
definitive issue is actually political adaptation. Revolutions tend to
ignite in countries with inflexible political institutions. Some
political systems are very rigid. Technological changes tend to lead to
economic dynamism, which tends to produce new social forces. These begin
to make demands upon the political system largely aimed at expanding
participation. The stability of any political system facing new demands
from emergent social forces will always depend on its flexibility to
accommodate them.
This was
the challenge facing the Ancient regime in France in 1789 and Tsarist
Russia in 1917. Both these systems had become archaic relative to the
structural transformation taking place in their societies. Their
survival depended on their ability to adapt – a lesson from the United
Kingdom. The conditions in France and Britain in 1789 were almost
similar. However, the major difference was in their political
institutions; the UK system was flexible, a factor that allowed it to
give concessions to the demands of new and emergent social forces.
Political flexibility mitigated pressure for revolution in UK while
inflexibility did the opposite in France.
It seems
the Arab-Spring is less likely in Africa because political systems are
fairly flexible. We have multi-party political systems. Regardless of
their one million and one imperfections, the systems provide a minimum
level of political participation and a large dose of contestation. In
some countries, power changes from ruling to opposition party – Ghana,
Senegal, Malawi, Zambia etc. This allows them to accommodate new
demands. Therefore, even though most countries on our continent are
facing the same structural imperatives as the regimes in the Arab world,
revolution is less likely. This is not because of lack of leaders and
organisations but because there is space for accommodating emergent
demands from new social forces.
Africa’s
political risk profile is a product of both objective conditions
obtaining on our continent and existing biases and prejudices among
observers. I talked to an equity fund manager in London just before
going to Nairobi. She told me that if a fund manager invested in ten
projects in China and seven went burst, he/she could easily retain their
job. If he/she invested in ten projects in Africa and three went burst,
he/she is likely to lose their job. The reason is obvious: investing in
China is seen as the right thing to do. So the risks are accepted.
Investment in Africa is seen as a wrong decision. Any slight mistake is
punished severely.
The point
is that in discussing Africa’s political risk profile, we cannot ignore
the centrality of the prejudices of the observer. These prejudices are
generated by our own dysfunctions over the decades – so they are not
pulled out of thin air. But they are worsened by how we African elites
articulate them and thereby help feed the monster of prejudice that
hangs around our continent’s neck. For example, crony capitalism is
rampant in East Asia and China. But it has not stopped the evolution of
dynamic economies. It is still rampant in most of Africa, yet our
continent is the second fastest growing region on the planet after
China.
Because
most of Africa has sustained growth for two decades now, investors are
beginning to take it seriously as a destination for investment. And
because of the emergence of China and India as exporters of investment
capital, Africa is beginning to see more investors from them. China and
India do not have the deeply entrenched prejudices about Africa of
Western Europe and its offshoots in North America, Australia and New
Zeeland. Finally, the crisis of the Eurozone, coupled with sluggish
growth in the United States, is making investors look for new areas to
invest their money. Africa now has a real chance, let us not waste it.
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