Economic Policy and Conflict in Africa

Abstract

The essay seeks to explore the link between economic policy and conflict in Africa, locating the analysis within the global systemic paradigm rather than using the narrower nationand ethnicity-oriented paradigms. The analysis distinguishes between economic resources and economic policy. It argues that although in Africa (as in most parts of the Third World) direct control over economic resources is still the main objective of the major international actors, there is a major shift towards the control over economic policy as a means to control the resources, and now increasingly towards the control of the African state itself. This distinction between economic resources and economic policy helps to explain why there is so much emphasis these days on matters of democracy, good governance, the rule of law, corruption, and other such instruments of state policy and practice.