Party Politics and Economic Reform in Africa's Democracies African Studies Series

In Party Politics and Economic Reform in Africa's Democracies, M. Anne Pitcher offers an engaging new theory to explain the different trajectories of private sector development across contemporary Africa. Pitcher argues that the outcomes of economic reforms depend not only on the kinds of institutional arrangements adopted by states in order to create or expand their private sectors, but also on the nature of party system competition and the quality of democracy in particular countries. To illustrate her claim, Pitcher draws on several original data sets covering twenty-seven countries in Africa, and detailed case studies of the privatization process in Zambia, Mozambique and South Africa. This study underscores the importance of formal institutions and political context to the design and outcome of economic policies in developing countries.

1. Understanding institutional development in Africa: an introduction; 2. From motivational to imperative commitment: variation and convergence of private sector institutions across Africa; 3. The impact of party politics and democratic quality on economic restructuring; 4. Party fragmentation and 'ad hoc' privatization in a limited democracy: Zambia; 5. Stable parties, limited democracy, and strategic compromise: Mozambique; 6. Stable parties, limited democracy, and strategic compromise: South Africa; 7. Conclusion: rules, politics, and discretion.

M. Anne Pitcher is Professor of Political Science and African Studies at the University of Michigan. She is the author of Transforming Mozambique: The Politics of Privatization (Cambridge University Press, 2002) and Politics in the Portuguese Empire: The State, Industry, and Cotton, 1926–1974 (1993). She co-edited African Postsocialisms with Kelly Askew (2006) and her articles have appeared in Comparative Politics, the Journal of Modern African Studies, African Studies Review and Politique Africaine, among other publications. In 2003–2004, she was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. To explore patterns of political and economic reform across Africa, she has conducted extensive research in Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia, Angola and Uganda.