My first encounter with ROAPE was in graduate school some 45 years ago. One of its overseas editors, Björn Beckman, taught a course on the political economy of underdevelopment at Ahmadu Bello University, Nigeria, where I was studying with colleagues such as Raufu Mustapha, Jibrin Ibrahim and Adebayo Olukoshi, and he assigned many articles from the fledgling journal for us to read and critique. It was a profound experience in those years in the late 1970s, when liberation struggles in southern Africa and the solidarity campaigns that nourished them were at their height. Little did I anticipate that a decade later, in 1989, I would be invited to attend with another colleague, Balefi Tsie, as young PhDs, a meeting of the Editorial Working Group in Sheffield as part of our induction into the broad ROAPE family.
It has been an enriching intellectual experience and journey from being nurtured on material from the journal to becoming a Contributing Editor in the 1990s. The heady 1970s had given way to euphoria of the 1980s when Zimbabwe and later Namibia made their transition to independence, with South Africa following with its own democratic transition in 1994. Those were years full of optimism about prospects for democracy and development, and ROAPE covered those themes extensively. But it was optimism tinged with scholarly scepticism.
The broader context was of a changing world that was experiencing a unipolar moment in those 1990s and early 2000s following the end of the Cold War. The great themes then were, first, globalisation as another mode of imperialism and, second, democratisation prospects in Africa in the context of neoliberalism. There were high hopes regarding advances in constitutionalism and good governance signalled by reforms, regular elections and term limits for presidents. Popular struggles by various movements embracing workers, small farmers, students, professional associations and other civil society groups had been in active in struggles for the democratic transitions. Rich debates on the sustainability and trajectory of political transitions and economic transformations animated the pages of ROAPE in those years. We were no longer mere avid readers but active contributors and reviewers as well.
But the euphoria would not last. The unipolar moment gave the sole superpower, the United States, unlimited powers of intervention and hegemony in other parts of the world, not only in Africa but also in the Middle East, among others, disrupting the international order and provoking reaction from other great powers, namely Russia and China. The Great Recession of 2008 would have a disruptive effect not only on global capitalism but also on Africa’s fragile natural-resource-based economies. The effects of that recession induced by globalisation are still working their way through African economies, and some of the most insightful analyses of these processes have been articulated in ROAPE over the years.
The 2010s and 2020s would witness a resurgence of inter-imperialist rivalry, including economic competition between the Great Powers. China under Deng Xiaoping in the 1990s emerged as a powerful economy, becoming second to the US in the 2000s. Africa has gravitated towards China as a source of investment especially in infrastructure, and as a vast market particularly for primary products ranging from minerals to agriculture and timber. There are debates on the Africa–China relationship, including on the presumed benevolence of the Chinese, the cost of their aid, and the impact of their investments on the environment. Questions about neo-colonialism are as alive in discussions about China’s and Russia’s relationships with Africa as they have been about French and US relations with Africa. These questions will continue to be debated in ROAPE and elsewhere in Africa itself.
Looking back 50 years ago, little did we anticipate that internal conflicts in Africa would continue to loom large many decades later. Millions perished in conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo and thousands in Mozambique, Angola, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Sudan and Somalia, among others. Millions more have been displaced, disrupting development and triggering waves of migration internally and externally. Peace has also been elusive in Sahelian countries like Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad, not to mention Nigeria and Libya. The absence of peace has disrupted the political order and development in most of these countries, while the spread of Islamic insurgencies like Al-Qaeda has complicated these conflicts. There are enormous demands on African statecraft to address and resolve these conflicts.
Disrupting the initial optimism that we had for the elites and parties that inherited the colonial state has been pervasive corruption in most of African countries. While corruption takes many forms and involves multiple players, the more prominent type of corruption has been state-based, with ruling elites creaming off public resources for their self-enrichment. Billions of dollars have been diverted into the private vaults of politicians, multinational corporations, local companies and state-related companies from outside. The wealth of leaders such as Joseph Mobutu, Ali Bongo, Sani Abacha, Muammar Gaddafi and Ben Ali, to mention a few, involved a pillage of public resources that should have been invested in social development in hospitals and schools, in infrastructure and key services. Corruption has also been closely associated with illicit transfers of resources outside the continent, transfers that run into billions of dollars every year.
One cannot conclude this retrospective view without worrying about the rollback of the economic and political gains made during the period covered by ROAPE. In the 2020s, we have witnessed some backsliding in the Sahel in the form of coups. In parts of eastern and southern Africa, a similar process of backsliding is disappointingly under way. There are fewer cases of democratic consolidation.
One can be excused for looking back to the 1960s and 1970s with a twinge of nostalgia. Popular struggles for independence and liberation had provided an expression of political power and solidarity. There should be a resurgence of those struggles to empower not just the small farmers and miners but also the growing middle classes on whom the future of democracy and development depend. Those of us who have been honoured to be associated with the Review have witnessed candid analysis of the unfolding developments described above, and the hopes and anxieties about their impact on sustainable development and democracy. One can only wish ROAPE well as it continues another 50 years and beyond, of erudite, activist and progressive analysis of African affairs and political economy.
