University of Amsterdam

Neoliberal Policies as path towards
economic recover in Sub Saharan
African Countries ?

Author: 

Lutz Lindenau

Introduction 2

The Problem 5

The Neoliberal Approach 8

Categorization of trade policy regimes 8

Structural Adjustment Programs 11

Results 14

Conclusion 16

Sources 19

Introduction

As a participant of the course ′Abandoning Development: Africa and the Contemporary Economic International Political-Economic System I am asked to write a final paper about an issue that was dealt with in the course and which is also based on the literature, that was provided. Since I am a Political Science student, who specialized in International Relations, I deliberately chose the course mentioned above to learn about the global economic-political system and its impact on whole regions. The case of Africa, in particular of Sub Saharan Africa, provides the participant with some understanding of the relationship between the developed and the developing countries, it′s inequalities, dependencies and perspectives, that I came across in other subjects like International relations, International Political Economy, the Political economy of the Middle East, etc. In that sense I feel that this case of an entire unprivileged region, like Sub Sahara Africa, fits into that context which I have already studied.

At the international level, the fate of Sub Saharan African countries is highly relevant not just for its 45 countries hosting 500 million people. The De-humanization of Africa, as Manuel Castells refers to, goes in line with the rise of information/global capitalism by the beginning of seventies in the last century. Consequently many of its states disintegrated, societies collapsed, causing famine, epidemics, civil war, and social/political chaos. If one perceives these deteriorating developments as structurally conditioned then one can easily see the link to the global economic system and imagine the consequences, leading to several scenarios that the global community will have to deal with. But rather than developing these scenarios, this paper deals with the issue, whether recent policies and tools to ameliorate the economic situation of many African countries are suitable and eventually led to improvement in economic and social terms. Since the early eighties neoliberal policies were introduced by US-president Reagan and the UK-Prime minister Margaret Thatcher. Deregulation, privatization and liberalization were applied in domestic issues as well as largely on the world scale via the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank These three concepts of liberal policies became the magic words in making economies more efficient and dismantled welfare states and social standards. What do these policies mean for countries that were already lagging behind in the economic race for centuries? Can these concepts be equally applied in less developed countries and are the social costs bearable? Consequently, the title of this paper is called:

· Neoliberal Policies as path towards economic recover in Sub Saharan Africa?

The main research question of this paper will be split in four subordinated sections:

1. The Problem
2. The Neoliberal Approach
3. Structural Adjustment Programms
4. Results

In section one I will illustrate the economic and social difficulties that Sub-Saharan African countries were struggling with. In order to have a more balanced overview I will introduce the perspectives of scholars who either describe the problem from an inward (Jonathan Frimpong-Ansah) or an outward perspective (Manuel Castells). It will serve as a starting point that called upon finding workable solutions to improvement.

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