Continental J.

Arts and Humanities 7 (1): 11 - 20, 2015

Wilolud Journals, 2015
Printed in Nigeria

ISSN: 2141 - 4092

http://www.wiloludjournal.com
doi:10.5707/cjah.2015.7.1.11.20

REVIEW PAPER

THE PATHWAY FOR AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT IN THE 21ST CENTURY

Morka Blessing .C and Ese Agiri
Directorate of General Studies, Delta State Polytechnic, Ozoro
ABSTRACT
Africa, the second largest continent, covering about one-fifth of the total land
surface of the earth is endowed with enormous wealth of mineral resources,
including some of the worlds largest reserves of fossil fuels, metallic ores, and
germs and precious metals. Despite, the rich natural endowment in Africa, the
continent has remained chronically under developed. The failure to mobilize
the resource-allocative functions of the market can only contribute to the
inflexibility of the economy; and failure to recognize the weakness of market
forces in a number of fundamental areas can lead to failed adjustment. These
are the two pertinent lessons from Africas development experience.
Development policies will therefore have to be keenly responsive to the
capacity and weakness of both states and markets in Africa and seek to
mobilize the former why correcting the latter. The paper seeks to explore
alternative development strategy for Africa states in the twenty first century.
The paper examines the developmental state model and also the argument on
the replication of developmental state model in Africa. The paper recommends
that the developmental state model should be adopted by African states in
order to experience a sustainable economic development in the twenty first
century.
KEYWORDS: Mineral resources, pathway, resource allocation, natural
endowment, sustainable economy
Received for Publication: 11/06/15
Corresponding Author:

Accepted for Publication: 26/09/15

INTRODUCTION
The search for alternative paths to development in Africa today is much more entrenched than
ever before given the changes in the global political economy of the twenty first century. If
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Morka Blessing and Ese Agiri: Continental J. Arts and Humanities 7 (1): 11 - 20, 2015

Africa is going to ensure that it continue to play any significant role in this twenty first century
then there is need to find a model of a prototype Africa democratic developmental state to guide
the continents progress.
The Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) of the last two decades has plainly not worked but
so did the purely strong state led growth of the earlier decades. However, it is increasingly being
realized that the states role in Africa context is crucial in devising the broad development
programme and implementing any projects hinging upon the involvement of individual homes,
entrepreneurs and private organizations as wells as public institutions. State activism or
participation in the economy is very central.
By most developmental parameters, Africa fares badly with the rest of the world. There is a rise
in poverty, unemployment, insecurity and inequality across many African states. Yet there is
urgent need to promote social economic progress as the continent stands a danger of the
degenerating future into chaos if development is not promoted and the contradiction that appears
to foster conflict in the society are not reduced or eliminated.
Although, at independence most African states appeared to be developmental and most state
efforts were geared towards addressing issues of poverty, ignorance and disease, today the
performance of many African states leaves a lot to be desired. While other regions like South
East Asia have managed to make a leap forward, Africa seem to be very much retrogressing. The
big question is: why cant Africa learn from the South East Asian experience of a
developmental state model and use it to guide its own progress?
Many critiques have given their explanations for Africas failure to progress including such
factors like unequal trading relationships with the western world, corruption, high debt profile
and failure to regionalize among other things. At the same time however, Africa is known to be
rich continent with abundant natural endowment ranging from gold to diamonds to crude oil to
cheap labour supplies etc, all of which would offer the continent a sound industrial base. It is
African states and their leadership that have dismally failed to capitalize on these resources and
today, the continent continues to register the highest levels of poverty, unemployment, inequality
and consequently experiencing more inter and intra ethnic conflicts. The continent today is
characterized by famines, civil war, insurgency, trade imbalances, low industrial and agricultural
productivity, HIV/AIDS and recently Ebola scourge.
It is no wonder that most African states are top on the list of world banks most poor and heavily
indebted nations. It is very unfortunate that most countries at independence like Nigeria, Uganda,
Kenya and Ghana were at the same level as the Asian tigers although today they have all been
left behind.

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Morka Blessing and Ese Agiri: Continental J. Arts and Humanities 7 (1): 11 - 20, 2015

THE DEVELOPMENTAL STATE MODEL

With respect to the term of developmental state, Loriaux (1999) defined it as a kind of
capitalist political economy that is characterized by the preponderance of a certain kind of actor,
which pursues a certain kind of ambition using a certain kind of power. He further clarifies the
actor as the state bureaucracy, which is stimulated by a certain kind of ambition referring to not
only economic growth but also protection and promotion of national interests. The strong
ambition to develop, which Loriaux calls the moral ambition or in Johnsons words nationalist
incitement to development, is a stuff of developmental state Feina (2010).
Established by Johnson (1982), developmental state is considered as a key breakthrough in
Northeast Asia in American literature (Woo-Cumings, 1999). It is originally formulated as an
explanation of industrialization in Northeast Asia. He further considered developmental state
as shorthand for the seamless web of political, bureaucratic, and moneyed influences that
structures economic life in capitalist Northeast Asia. Thesis in developmental state is derived
from empirical observations in Japan at the beginning, then in South Korea and Taiwan.
However, Chang (1999) pointed out that the developmental state is not a new idea, and academic
supports can be found from the early development economists like Gunnar Myrdal, Paul Baran,
P. N. Rosenstein-Rodan, and Simon Kuznets.
As a pioneer in this scope, Johnson is followed by many scholars. The developmental state
model has become one of the main stream explanations. However, within the framework,
arguments on specific questions still exist. For example, is the developmental state fostered by
particular culture and history, what is the territory range for developmental state, can the
developmental state experience in East Asia be transferred, and so on. Whats more, because of
the pre-assumption of state intervention, the developmental state model to some extent is
regarded as a causal theory contributing the rapid economic growth to dynamic state actions,
which may not always be true, but at least partially the fact. With further evolvement of the
theory, coverage of the developmental state is expanded beyond the primary core regions. Many
scholars are trying to apply this model in analyzing various countries elsewhere, for instance,
India, Latin American, and even France.
Johnsons (1982) account of Japans economy miracle brings in the issue of the role of the state
in industrialization. He argued that the developmental state is the fundamental element for the
rapid growth of economy in Japans golden years. Japans economic planning state offers a new
state paradigm which is neither socialist nor plan-irrational in Johnsons words, nor freemarket, but the plan-rational capitalist developmental state binding private ownership with state
guidance.
The description of the pilot agencyThe Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI)
in Johnsons (1982) book provides a good starting point to understand the characteristics of

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Morka Blessing and Ese Agiri: Continental J. Arts and Humanities 7 (1): 11 - 20, 2015

developmental state. As an institution supervising the enforcement of industrial rationalization

and industrial structure policy, MITI was endued with the legitimacy and authority to regulate
and decide Japans provision and administration of new capital. Given such a strong power, the
MITI is described the greatest concentration of brainpower in Japan.
Being a widely accepted theory, characteristics of the developmental state model are well
concluded. Summaries can be referred to literatures like ni (1991), Wade (1992), Doner
(1992), Douglass (1994), and Polidano (2001). In general, the developmental state could be
characterized in the following ways:
The developmental state is of strong ambition to develop. Economic growth is the top
priority of the national interest.
Embedded autonomy(Evans,1995) which connects bureaucracies and the surrounding
social structure intensely is the key to the effectiveness of developmental state. Close
relationships are established between elite bureaucracy and private sectors. Business and
industry is under the states guidance. Though the state does not replace private
ownerships directly, it intervenes and instructs private sectors according to national
strategies.
The developmental state has a strong and active central government. Pilot agency plays
a crucial role within technocratic policy bureaucracies. Policy instruments are formulated
by a small group of qualified elites in economic policy bureaucracy.
The economic policy bureaucracy is consisting in a political network which offers
sufficient space in initiative-taking and effective operation.
After its emergence in the 1980s, the developmental state became a key concept in the study on
development of East Asia. It gradually achieved some kind of paradigm and was prevalent by the
early 1990s. But in the late 1990s, developmental state had encountered a hard time, especially
after the economic and financial crisis which heavily blew East Asiathe traditional cradle of
developmental statismin 1997. The loose trade and investment policies adopted followed the
1997 crisis accompanied with the financial reforms led to some declarations that times for
developmental state are over. Meanwhile, regulatory state and post-developmental state have
become alternative frameworks to account for the state transformation (Thurbon & Weiss, 2006).
Ong (1999) identified that the post-developmental state strategy denotes a new kind of
relationship whereby the state, through a plurality of forms, seeks to produce the kind of subjects
that are attractive to global capital, both as low-skilled and technical workers and as newly
affluent consumers. Here, state plays the role of guarantor of the social and legal conditions
rather than a fundamental economic actor. The notion post-developmental state reveals that the
developmental state has not reached its end, or its complete obsolescence. It is an ongoing
dynamic adaptive model.

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Morka Blessing and Ese Agiri: Continental J. Arts and Humanities 7 (1): 11 - 20, 2015

ARGUMENT ON THE REPLICATION OF THE DEVELOPMENTAL STATE MODEL

IN AFRICA
Africa can move forward and achieve development on the Model of Developmental States
(Mkandawire, 1998; Taylor, 2003; Mbabazi and Taylor, 2005) as evidenced by countries like
Botswana.
There is of course a major problem in defining an African Development state. Most definitions
of the developmental state are often drawn deductively from the performance of the economy,
equating economic success to state strength. In Africa, there have been many examples of states
whose performance up until the mid 1970s would have qualified them as developmental states
in the sense conveyed by current definitions, but which now seem anti-developmental because
the hard times and especially economic expansion of their countries is put to a halt. Recognition
of episodes and possibilities of failures lead to a definition of a developmental state as one whose
ideological underpinnings are developmental and one that seriously attempts to display its
administrative and political resource to the task of economic development (Mbabazi and Taylor
2005).
The idea that the market is the be-all and end-all of the argument pertaining to economic
progress and development and that the role of the state must be curtailed from involvement in
economic planning and management, has proved to have been problematic in Africa.
Liberalization and globalization negate any active role for the public sector in promoting
development, except perhaps as a minimalist regulator (Shaw 1997). This particular
understanding of globalization is highly problematic, particularly as it is precisely those
administrations that have maintained a role for the state in promoting social and economical
development that have the most impressive track records vis--vis growth and economic
progress.
The role of the states in Africa in promoting development in this era of globalization is very
crucial and there is need for a concerted effort by all stakeholders including academicians to
assert this as the course best suited for Africa and inform the policy makers. There is a need for
an activist role of the state in the economy to ensure Africa recovery and successful
development.
For Africa, the various international financial institutions have argued that African states lack the
capacity to pursue policies similar to the developmental states of East Asia, whilst being far too
susceptible to vested interest in the political realm. Elites in Africa have frequently taken on
board such advice and have come to believe that a minimalist role for the state is required.
Whilst recognizing the problematic nature of a great deal of African state formations, across the
board liberalization and state roll back has been similarly dubious. It is thus extremely important
to challenge the thesis that state involvement inexorably leads to economic decline and that

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Morka Blessing and Ese Agiri: Continental J. Arts and Humanities 7 (1): 11 - 20, 2015

developmental states in Africa are impossibility. As earlier noted, examples do exist in Africa
that contradicts to a large extent this position. Botswana is one of such case and some of the
developmental efforts promoted in Uganda by the state are of interest (see Mbabazi and Taylor,
2005). African countries can borrow some of the experiences of the East Asian model and
contextualize these to Africans realities. Clearly, the type of interventions aimed at promoting
the economy and at sharing the benefits across the wider society have to be varied. In terms of
lessons learned from the past in Asia, it is true that government intervention can and has played a
crucial role in propitiating the development of the factors that facilitates some form of auspicious
participation in the global market. The regulation of foreign direct investment (FDI) for instance
in building up local capacity and employment has been a key to this strategy and needs to be
replicated in African economies. Most African countries have wantonly opened up their
economies with hardly any restrictions to their detriment.
The four major components of a developmental states as advanced by Johnson (1982) include:
the presence of a small but professional and efficient state bureaucracy: a political milieu where
this bureaucracy has enough space to operate and take policy initiatives independent of overly
intrusive interventions by vested interests; the crafting of methods of state intervention in the
economy without sabotaging the market principle; a pilot organization such as he found in MITI.
The market was seen as a device that could be utilized for advancing a developmental agenda
whereby the state involved itself in setting substantive social and economic goals (Johnson1982).
As Oni (1991) puts, it is the synergy between the state and the market which provides the basis
for outstanding development experience. This understanding undoubtedly undermines those who
see the state as being in opposition to the market but rather points in the direction of the
successful developmental state.
Industrial policy is not an alternative to the market but is what the state does when it
intentionally alters incentives within markets in order to influence the behavior of civilian
producers, consumers and investors. Altering market incentives, reducing risks, offering
entrepreneurial visions and managing conflicts are some of the functions of developmental state
(Johnson 1982). Both Uganda and Botswana have demonstrated such qualities (see Mbabazi and
Taylor 2005). It should be noted that in talking of developmental states, what it really meant is
state capitalist developmental states, following Gordon Whites three typologies: state capitalist,
intermediate and state socialist (White 1984).
Some authors have argued that the developmental state is unique to East Asia (Oni 1991) and
therefore cannot be replicated elsewhere. Cline (1982) has asserted that the Asian model cannot
be generalized because its inherent constraints on international markets, i.e. that only a certain
number of states can pursue the export-oriented growth model side of the developmental state
otherwise everyone else would introduce protectionist barriers to them. But this is not wholly the
case as demonstrated by either Botswana or arguably Ugandas experiences. Other recent work

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Morka Blessing and Ese Agiri: Continental J. Arts and Humanities 7 (1): 11 - 20, 2015

has demonstrated that developmental states are not limited to East Asia but have been achieved
elsewhere. In his study of Mauritus, Richard Kearney (1990) presumed effective government
macro-economic policy leadership in both monetary and fiscal areas. It further presumes the
maintenance of an entrepreneurial climate so that diversification and exploitations of new
manufacturing niches can proceed in the private sector. Government policy choice is critical to
development. Other authors have indeed concluded that Mauritius is a developmental state
(Meisinhelder 1997)
Leftwich (1995) has provided six major defining characteristics of a typical developmental state,
which includes: a determined developmental elite, relative autonomy; a powerful competent and
insulated bureaucracy; a weak and subordinated civil society; the effective management of nonstate economic interest; and legitimacy and performance.
Evans (1995) agrees that a capable and autonomous bureaucracy that makes use of the market
and formulates national goals and one that has the competence and resources to implement these
goals is crucial.
In a comprehensive review of a neo-liberal objections to the developmental state, Chang (1999)
argued that successful developmental states have pursued policies that coordinate investment
plans; have a national development vision implying that the state is an entrepreneurial agent, that
engage in institution building to promote growth and development, and finally, play a role in
conflicts that arise out of reactions and counteractions to the winner and losers as it were.
It should be noted though that developmental states in Africa cannot be or will not be similar to
those found in Asia, but relegating the role of the state in Africa today needs to be seriously
challenged.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Development is an instinct of nations. According to World Development Report (World Bank,
1997), provision of goods and services like rules and institutions that flourish markets and
promotes peoples lives is the foundation of good governments in a changing world. Hence,
without capacities to develop, the government cannot be regarded as good governments. The
changing world puts forward a much higher and more urgent requirement for development. Then
the point is that without a developmental state, economic development is inconceivable in many
undeveloped countries. Moreover, third world countries account for most proportions on the
earth, and this is likely to be the basic pattern of the globalizing world in a long time. To
compete with developed counterparts, developing countries are apt to choose developmental
state so as to make best use of their advantages.

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Morka Blessing and Ese Agiri: Continental J. Arts and Humanities 7 (1): 11 - 20, 2015

Promoting developmental states with the characteristics as advanced by Leftwich (1995) is very
crucial for Africas progress and development. There is need to appreciate those few countries
that have demonstrated progress in these areas and learn lessons for replication elsewhere on the
continent. In the context of Africa, state that is purposefully driven to promote development and
that utilizes the offices of the state in order to facilitate improvement, alongside other actors such
as private sector and civil society can in the particular circumstances find itself, be regarded as
developmental and this is what need to be promoted in Africa. There is no country in the world
that has been able to develop in the context of free markets alone. Developmental activism is no
longer optional but vital in Africa. The East Asian tigers practiced developmental state activism
and economic nationalism enabling them to produce goods that had a potential to penetrate the
global markets. This is what Africa needs to do much as the scenario is different today. Emphasis
on high-level bureaucratic competence and a conducive institutional framework for African
countries among other factors is very crucial if Africa wants to remain relevant in the 21st
century.
The paper therefore recommends that African states should adopt the Developmental State
Model in order to experience sustainable economic development and remain relevant in world
politics in the 21st century.
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