Stein Sundstøl Eriksen

Mozambique: A Political Economy Analysis

This report uses a political economy analysis to shed light on some of the paradoxes that characterize Mozambique mid 2017: Entrenched poverty, the resuscitated armed conflict/war, the trust crisis between the Mozambican (Frelimo) government and its development partners, the spiralling debt and the party-state. Since 2017, Mozambique is arguably at one of its most critical moments since the end of the civil war, in a crisis-like cocktail of political, economic and social problems. By the time of writing, the Mozambican authorities only released the content of the Kroll report (an independent forensic audit of the ‘secret’ loans taken up in 2013) in summary form. Mozambique defaulted on its foreign debt in 2016, which has become unsustainable for the immediate future. The ‘secret’ loans explain a smaller part of the new debt, while heavy international and domestic borrowing and public spending after the discovery of large new mineral resources drove up the debt levels. The economy unhinged not by a full-blown resource curse, but rather by the mere prospect of large future income from the offshore LNG gas and coal, which we dubbed the “presource curse”.

South Sudan: A Political Economy Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the current state of South Sudan. A main argument is that its political economy is fundamentally atypical: achieving independence in 2011 and dissolving into renewed civil war in 2013, South Sudan is suffering the crisis of a weak, neo-patrimonial guerrilla government, with fragmented military-political systems that stretch across its extensive borderlands. This report locates the current crisis within a longer and deeper context, and explores the power dynamics and centrifugal destructive forces that drive patterns of extractive, violent governance. These forces underpin today’s economic and state collapse, civil war, famine, the flight of its people, and their local tactics of survival.

State effects and the effects of state building: institution building and the formation of state-centred societies

This article discusses the assumptions underlying state-building efforts and the effects of these efforts. It addresses two main questions: why has state building not led to the establishment of effective states? And what are the effects of statebuilding? It is argued that these efforts have been based on an institutionalist model of the state derived from a Weberian framework, and that the basic reason why state building has failed is that the creation of effective states requires the creation of state-centred societies, where both material and symbolic resources are concentrated in the state. This is very difficult to achieve for external actors. But, although state building has not achieved the kinds of effects associated with effective states, it has nevertheless had significant effects. These include, first, accentuating the patrimonialism which has led to state weakness in the first place; second, reductions in national sovereignty as external actors’ substantial influence on policy agendas renders the state itself subject to control and regulation by actors external to it; and, third, perpetuating the idea of the state, while undermining the possibility of creating actual states which conform to this idea.

From State-led development to embedded neoliberalism: India’s Industrial and Social Policies in Comparative Perspective

In the literature, there are mixed opinions about the links between economic globalisation and social policies. On the one hand, it is argued that increased global economic integration compels states to promote their countries’ economic competitiveness. In an increasingly liberalised world economy, this leads to a ‘race to the bottom’, in which states, in order to attract investment and prevent capital flight, must cut spending and reduce tax rates (Swank 2001; Brooks 2009). On the other hand, it is claimed that in the face of increased economic insecurity, citizens will demand more social protection by the state, as compensation for increased insecurity. According to this argument, increased economic liberalisation will be accompanied by expanded social policies, along the lines seen in Europe in the period of ‘embedded liberalism’, when welfare states were built. For India, similar arguments have been made by Partha Chatterjee, who argues that along with a (neoliberal) policy promoting the ‘primitive accumulation of capital’, the state has undertaken to ‘reverse the effects of primitive accumulation’ by funding programmes that provide alternative means of livelihood to those that have lost them (Chatterjee 2013: 214). This chapter will assess the role of the state in industrial development and welfare provision in India. It will trace the evolution of state policies, focusing mainly on the period from the 1970s until today, to identify patterns of both continuity and change. It will focus on: 1 Economic policies, including the system of regulation, degree of state ownership and industrial policy (state ownership, licensing, trade policies, tax system); 2 Social protection (direct or conditional cash transfers, social assistance, pensions, unemployment benefits, public works, health and education).

Slutten på demokratiet? Globalisering, nyliberalisme og demokratiets framtid

Postcolonialism and the specter of capital