Africa and the poverty of International Relations

Third World Quarterly

Volumn 26, Issue 6, 2005, Pages 987-1003

  Jones, Branwen Gruffydd ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS; POLITICAL ECONOMY; POVERTY; TWENTIETH CENTURY;

EID: 32144445232     PISSN: 01436597     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/01436590500089356     Document Type: Article

References (121)

1. For example, on one hand, Tony Blair's declaration at the British Labour Party annual conference in 2001 that the 'state of Africa is a scar on the conscience of the world', reiterated at the World Economic Forum in January 2005 in the context of Britain's presidency of the G8; on the other hand, the attention to poverty and global inequality paid by philosophers and normative theorists. For example, TW Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002
2. C Brown, Sovereignty, Rights and Justice: International Political Theory Today, Cambridge: Polity, 2002, ch
3. Brown, International Relations Theory: New Normative Approaches, London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992, ch 7
4. and CR Beitz, Political Theory and International Relations, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979, Part 2.
5. A full account would of course emphasise the geopolitical and ideological determinations of Modernisation Theory, which must be situated within the context of the Cold War and the global counter-revolution against possibilities of radical reform and transformation both within Third World societies and of the international system. Such an account is beyond the scope of this article, which is restricted to specifying (rather than fully accounting for) the substantive weaknesses of prevailing academic approaches.
6. See, however, IL Gendzier, Managing Political Change: Social Scientists and the Third World, Boulder, CO: Westview, 1985
7. and N Chomsky, I Katznelson, RC Lewontin, D Montgomery, L Nader, R Ohmann, R Siever, I Wallerstein & H Zinn, The Cold War and the University: Toward an Intellectual History of the Postwar Years, New York: New Press, 1997.
8. Key works include DE Apter, The Politics of Modernization, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965
9. Apter, Some Conceptual Approaches to the Study of Modernization, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1968
10. GA Almond & JS Coleman, The Politics of Developing Areas, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1960
11. SN Eisenstadt, Modernization: Protest and Change, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1966
12. M Kilson, Political Change in a West African State: A Study of the Modernization Process in Sierra Leone, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966
13. DA Rustow, A World of Nations: Problems of Political Modernization, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1967
14. D Lerner, The Passing of Traditional Society, Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 195
15. and T Parsons, Structure and Process in Modern Societies, Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1960.
16. See LW Pye, Aspects of Political Development, Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1966
17. LW Pye & S Verba, Political Culture and Political Development, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1965
18. and KWJ Post, The Nigerian Federal Elections of 1959: Politics and Administration in a Developing Political System, London: Oxford University Press, 1963.
19. See GA Almond & GB Powell, Comparative Politics: A Developmental Approach, Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1966
20. DE Apter, 'A comparative method for the study of politics', American Journal of Sociology, 64, 1958, pp 221-237
21. SN Eisenstadt, Essays on Comparative Institutions, New York: John Wiley, 1965
22. RE Gamer, The Developing Nations: A Comparative Perspective, Boston, MD: Allyn and Bacon, 1976
23. AL Kalleberb, 'The logic of comparison: A methodological note on the study of political systems', World Politics, 19(1), 1966, pp 69-82
24. and CE Black, The Dynamics of Modernization: A Study in Comparative History, New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1966.
25. CE Pletsch, 'The three worlds, or the division of social scientific labor, circa 1950-1975', Comparative Studies in Society and History, 23, 1981, pp 565-590.
26. HD Lasswell, 'The policy sciences of development', World Politics, 17(2), 1965, pp 286-309.
27. See AR Zolberg, 'The structure of political conflict in the new states of tropical Africa', American Political Science Review, 62(1), 1968, pp 70-87
28. J O'Connell, 'The inevitability of instability', Journal of Modern African Studies, 5, 1967, pp 181-191
29. PL van den Berghe, 'Ethnicity: The African experience', International Social Science Journal, 23(4), 1971, pp 507-518
30. R Lemarchand, 'Political clientelism and ethnicity in tropical Africa', American Political Science Review, 66, 1972, pp 68-90
31. SP Huntington, 'Political development and political decay', World Politics, 17, 1965, pp 386-430
32. Eisenstadt, Modernization; Eisenstadt, Tradition, Change and Modernity, New York: John Wiley, 1973
33. DG Morrison & HM Stevensen, 'Cultural pluralism, modernization and conflict: An empirical analysis of sources of political instability in African nations', Canadian Journal of Political Science, 5, 1972, pp 82-103
34. and JC Mitchell, Tribalism and the Plural Society, London, 1960.
35. For example, AR Zolberg, Creating Political Order: The Party-States of West Africa, Chicago: Rand-McNally, 1966
36. DE Apter, Political Change, London: Frank Cass, 1973
37. Eisenstadt, Modernization; Eisenstadt, Comparative Perspectives on Social Change, Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1968
38. Kilson, Political Change in a West African State;
39. AW Southall, Social Change in Modern Africa, London: Oxford University Press and International African Institute,
40. and M Halpern, The Politics of Social Change in the Middle East and North Africa, Princeton, NJ: Rand, 1963. Again, this overriding concern with orderly social and political change has to be situated within the context of the Cold War and the Western powers' fears of revolution and communist expansion in the Third World.
41. 'Integration into a free society does not entail the total elimination of conflict from political life, but rather its containment within acceptable limits as indicated by a shift from force to power and authority. How this is achieved remains a central problem of the social sciences which far transcends the parochial concerns of particular disciplines or sub-disciplines within each.' Zolberg, 'The structure of political conflict in the new states of tropical Africa', p 87.
42. See SN Eisenstadt & S Rokkan, Building States and Nations, Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1973
43. and A Rivkin, Nations By Design: Institution Building in Africa, Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1968.
44. See R Munck & D O'Hearn, Critical Development Theory: Contributions to a New Paradigm, London: Zed Books, 1999
45. M Rahnema & V Bawtree, The Post-Development Reader, London: Zed Books, 1997
46. and W Sachs, The Development Dictionary: A Guide to Knowledge as Power, London: Zed Books, 1992.
47. Of course, there are important exceptions to this general characterisation, including C Thomas & P Wilkin (eds), Globalisation, Human Security and the African Experience, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1999
48. J Saurin, 'Globalisation, poverty, and the promises of modernity', Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 25(3), 1996, pp 657-680
49. and M Williams, International Economic Organisations and the Third World, London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1994. Nevertheless, on the whole IR as a discipline has been successful in restricting concern about global poverty to the narrow confines of a particular 'issue-area'.
50. RH Jackson, Quasi-States: Sovereignty, International Relations, and the Third World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990, p 10.
51. See the important critique in AJ Ayers, 'The constitution of African democracy through the global political economy', DPhil thesis, University of Sussex, 2004.
52. P Gran, Beyond Eurocentrism: A New View of Modern World History, Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1996, p 2.
53. See, for example, M Kilson, New States in the Modern World, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975
54. Zolberg, 'The structure of political conflict in the new states of tropical Africa';
55. and P Lyon, 'New states and international order', in A James, The Bases of International Order: Essays in Honour of CAW Manning, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973, pp 24-59.
56. See, for example, WI Zartman, International Relations in the New Africa, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1966
57. Zartman, 'Africa as a subordinate state system in International Relations', International Organization, 21(3), 1967, pp 545-564
58. V McKay, African Diplomacy: Studies in the Determinants of Foreign Policy, New York: Praeger, 1966
59. S Hoffman, 'Regulating the new international system', in Kilson, New States in the Modern World, pp 171-199.
60. For example, MR Singer, Weak States in a World of Powers: The Dynamics of International Relationships, New York: Free Press, 1972
61. RL Rothstein, The Weak in the World of the Strong: The Developing Countries in the International System, New York: Columbia University Press, 1977
62. RH Jackson & CG Rosberg, 'Why Africa's weak states persist: The empirical and the juridical in statehood', World Politics, 35(1), 1982, pp 1-24
63. and MI Handel, Weak States in the International System, London: Frank Cass, 1981.
64. M Kilson, 'Cleavage management in African politics: The Ghana case', in Kilson, New States in the Modern World, pp 75-88
65. Jackson & Rosberg, 'Why Africa's weak states persist';
66. Zolberg, 'The structure of political conflict in the new states of tropical Africa';
67. Pye, Aspects of Political Development;
68. Parsons, Structure and Process in Modern Societies;
69. SP Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968
70. and J O'Connell, 'The inevitability of instability'.
71. M Kilson, 'Preface', in Kilson, New States in the Modern World, p xi.
72. H Bull & A Watson, The Expansion of International Society, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984
73. Jackson & Rosberg, 'Why Africa's weak states persist';
74. and H Butterfield & M Wight, Diplomatic Investigations, London: Allen and Unwin, 1966.
75. Hoffman, 'Regulating the new international system', p 179.
76. Jackson & Rosberg, 'Why Africa's weak states persist', p 16.
77. Jackson, Quasi-States, p 5.
78. For a critique, see the important work of Antony Anghie, 'Finding the peripheries: Sovereignty and colonialism in nineteenth-century international law', Harvard International Law Journal, 40(1), 1999, pp 1-80
79. and Anghie, Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of International Law, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
80. See M Williams, 'Africa and the international economic system: dependency or self-reliance?', in S Wright & JN Brownfoot, Africa in World Politics: Changing Perspectives, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1987, pp 35-50,
81. Williams, Third World Cooperation: The Group of 77 in UNCTAD, London: Pinter, 1991
82. RA Mortimer, The Third World Coalition in International Politics, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1984
83. RL Rothstein, Global Bargaining: UNCTAD and the Quest for a New International Economic Order, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979
84. and S Krasner, Structural Conflict, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.
85. See, in particular, M Bedjaoui, Towards a New International Economic Order, New York: Holmes and Meier, 1979.
86. See, for example, RK Ashley, 'The geopolitics of geopolitical space: toward a critical social theory of international politics', Alternatives, 12(4), 1987, pp 403-434
87. J George & D Campbell, 'Patterns of dissent and the celebration of difference: Critical social theory and international relations', International Studies Quarterly, 34(3), 1990, pp 269-293
88. RK Ashley & RJB Walker, 'Speaking the language of exile: Dissident thought in international politics', International Studies Quarterly, 34(3), 1990, pp 259-268
89. C Hill, '"Where are we going?" International Relations and the voice from below', Review of International Studies, 25(1), 1999, pp 107-122
90. S Gill, 'Gramsci and global politics: Towards a posthegemonic research agenda', in Gill, Gramsci, Historical Materialism and International Relations, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, pp 1 - 18
91. and CN Murphy, 'Critical theory and the democratic impulse', in R Wyn Jones, Critical Theory and World Politics, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2001, pp 61-76.
92. For example, RL Doty, 'Maladies of our souls: Identity and voice in the writing of academic international relations', Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 17(2), 2004, pp 377-392
93. N Inayatullah & D Blaney, International Relations and the Problem of Difference, London: Routledge, 2004
94. J Edkins, N Persram & V Pin-Fat (eds), Sovereignty and Subjectivity, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1999
95. and Y Lapid & F Kratochwil, The Return of Culture and Identity in IR Theory, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1997.
96. See S Smith, 'Positivism and beyond', in S Smith, K Booth & M Zalewski, International Theory: Positivism and Beyond, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp 11-44
97. M Neufeld, The Restructuring of International Relations Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995
98. JA Vasquez, The Power of Power Politics: From Classical Realism to Neotraditionalism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, ch 10
99. CT Sjolander & WS Cox, Beyond Positivism: Critical Reflections on International Relations, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1994
100. J George, 'The study of International Relations and the positivist/ empiricist theory of knowledge: Implications for the Australian discipline', in R Higgott (ed), New Directions in International Relations, Canberra: Australian National University, 1988, pp 65-142
101. and RK Ashley, 'The poverty of neo-realism', International Organization, 38(2), 1984, pp 225-286.
102. For example: 'the post-empiricist critique, looks at a number of criticisms made by philosophers of science such as the impossibility of a value-free, neutral and objective science'. JA Vasquez, 'The postpositivist debate: Reconstructing scientific enquiry and international relations after Enlightenment's fall', in K Booth & S Smith (eds), International Relations Theory Today, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995, p 217.
103. M Neufeld, The Restructuring of International Relations Theory, pp 96-106.
104. N Rengger & M Hoffman, 'Modernity, postmodernism and International Relations', in J Doherty, E Graham & M Malek (eds), Postmodernism and the Social Sciences, New York: St Martin's Press, 1992, p 133.
105. See also J George & D Campbell, 'Patterns of dissent and the celebration of difference'.
106. E Augelli & CN Murphy, 'Consciousness, myth and collective action: Gramsci, Sorel and the ethical state', in S Gill & JH Mittelman (eds), Innovation and Transformation in International Studies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, p16
107. and S Gill, 'Historical materialism, Gramsci, and International Political Economy' in CN Murphy & R Tooze (eds), The New International Political Economy, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1991, p 56.
108. R Tooze & CN Murphy, 'The epistemology of poverty and the poverty of epistemology: Mystery, blindness, and invisibility', Millennium, 25(3), 1996, pp 681-707.
109. K Shaw, 'Whose knowledge for what politics?', Review of International Studies, 29 (special issue), 2003, pp 199-221.
110. EF Keyman, 'Articulating difference: The problem of the Other in International Political Economy', Review of International Political Economy, 2(1), 1995, pp 71, 94.
111. R Palan, 'The constructivist underpinnings of the New International Political Economy', in Palan (ed), Global Political Economy: Contemporary Theories, London: Routledge, 2000, p 219.
112. Or, in case the very use of the term 'truth' is taken to signify commitment to a non-fallibilist notion of absolute truth, let us say 'adequacy'. See A Sayer, Method in Social Science: A Realist Approach, London: Routledge, 1992, ch 2.
113. See A Collier, 'About aboutness', Alethia, 2(1), 1999, pp 2-5.
114. R Bhaskar, The Possibility of Naturalism, London: Routledge, 1998
115. and Bhaskar, Scientific Realism and Human Emancipation, London: Verso, 1986.
116. Bhaskar, Scientific Realism and Human Emancipation, p 126.
117. The shallowness of the apparently radical impulse to listen to the voices of the poor as an end in itself is demonstrated by the fact that the World Bank has engaged in precisely such an exercise. See D Narayan, with R Patel, K Schafft, A Rademacher & S Koch-Schulte, Voices of the Poor: Can Anyone Hear Us?, New York: World Bank and Oxford University Press, 2000
118. D Narayan, R Chambers, MK Shah & P Petesch, Voices of the Poor: Crying Out for Change, New York: World Bank and Oxford University Press, 2000
119. D Narayan & P Petesch, Voices of the Poor: From Many Lands, New York: World Bank and Oxford University Press, 2002
120. and World Bank, Methodology Guide: Consultations with the Poor, Washington, DC: Poverty Group (PREM), 1999.
121. Shaw, 'Whose knowledge for what politics?'.