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Rethinking Governance and Development

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The Palgrave Handbook of African Politics, Governance and Development

Abstract

The chapter provides an account of the role of governance in Africa’s economic development. It presents the facts that show Africa as a region, since about the late 1990s, has substantially improved in growth and development in the form of per capita income, human development, and poverty. Second, it shows that both economic governance and political governance have improved considerably since the late 1980s or early 1990s, with economic governance measured by economic freedom and political governance by the index of electoral competiveness, executive constraint, and Polity II, as well as by indicators of political stability. Third, it attributes the favorable changes in economic outcomes significantly to these improvements in economic and political governance. Finally, looking to the future, the chapter flags the challenge of the likely disequilibrium between economics and politics under multiparty democracy, with adverse implications for fiscal allocation.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In the present chapter, ‘sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)’ is used synonymously with ‘Africa’.

  2. 2.

    Fosu (2015b) presents a similar discussion of the African growth and development record. For recent studies that discuss the disparity in performance among African countries see, for instance, Fosu (2010d, 2012).

  3. 3.

    Employing data on consumption rather than national income or GDP, Young (2012) finds that SSA’s growth has been miraculously faster. Rodrik (2014) however has a contrarian view, arguing that the ‘miracle’ may actually be a mirage.

  4. 4.

    The poverty data presented here are based on household surveys. Using national income data, Pinkovskiy and Sala-i-Martin (2014) find that Africa’s poverty rate has been falling even faster.

  5. 5.

    This index is the first principal component of the legislative index of electoral competitiveness (LIEC) and the executive index of electoral competitiveness (EIEC), with the respective weights of 0.49 and 0.51 (Fosu 2008a); the first principal component explains over 90% of the variance (Fosu 2008a).

  6. 6.

    Fosu (2008a) estimates the threshold for this regime as the level of the index of electoral competitiveness in excess of 4.4 (0.0–7.0 range).

  7. 7.

    XCONST measures the degree of constraint on the executive branch of government, and it takes on values of 0–7, where 7 is for ‘strict rules for governance’, 1 means ‘no one regulates the authority’, 0 signifies ‘perfect incoherence’, and so on (for details, see Fosu 2013b).

  8. 8.

    ‘Syndrome-free’ regime means a ‘combination of political stability with reasonably market-friendly policies’ (Fosu and O’Connell 2006, p. 54).

  9. 9.

    For example, in Ghana, the government is bent on building and operating regional universities, which are likely to duplicate programs in already existing national universities. Why?

  10. 10.

    Bates (2008a, p. 387) for instance argues that the recent political reforms in Africa may have actually resulted in macro-economic mismanagement, as ‘governments in competitive systems tend to spend more, to borrow more, to print money , and to postpone needed revaluations of their currencies than do those not facing political competition.’

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Statistical, Social, and Economic Research (ISSER), University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana

    Augustin Kwasi Fosu

  2. Department of Economic and Management Sciences, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa

    Augustin Kwasi Fosu

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  1. Augustin Kwasi Fosu
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute, University of South Africa, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Samuel Ojo Oloruntoba

  2. Department of History, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, USA

    Toyin Falola

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Fosu, A.K. (2018). Rethinking Governance and Development. In: Oloruntoba, S., Falola, T. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of African Politics, Governance and Development. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95232-8_55

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