Declining performance of the postcolonial African states suggest the inefficiency of centralization and or socialist strategy that currently dominates the region. The solution, however, is not a return to the largely unrestrained liberal economic models of the 1960s, such as import substitution industrialization or commodity export specialization. Whether from the left or right, the inability of all three models to define precise development roles for Africa state elites suggest their insensitivity to and inadequacy for the needs of these politically dynamic young states of Africa. An alternative model presented in this article would involve state elites in grass roots capitalist development. The model fosters decentralization and economic development without sacrificing rule legitimization and national integration as equal objectives. In many respects, the model is an attempt to adapt to African realities the norms of embedded liberalism that properly describe current Western liberalism.
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