International Studies

From the time of political independence through the 1990s and beyond, the political economy of development in Africa witnessed application of four different models of development. The first model was industrialization through import substitution; second was a focus on agriculture and redistribution of the benefits of economic growth; the third focused on social equity and targeting of special publics, and the fourth was the neoliberal approach whose inception saw the forced adoption of the shock therapy of structural adjustment programs. This article explores these models of development and observes that all the models of development in Africa have been informed by the assumptions of modernization theory. The article explores the practical implications and limitations of the assumptions of modernization theory as advanced by Africanist scholars in the Global North and juxtaposes these with the counterarguments of the dependency and underdevelopment perspectives articulated by Global South scholars. The article argues that the development models applied in Africa have not yielded the desired results by way of transforming the lives of the majority Africans. They have only worked to serve the interests of global capital and the local political classes. The article concludes that there is imperative need to rethink Africa's development models if development has to be meaningful to the majority. However, given the harmony of interests between global capitalism and the African political elite, such an eventuality of rethinking the development approaches requires the emergence of an effective social movement from below to champion this cause. Otherwise Africa's economies are doomed to remain mere appendages to global capitalism with little if any developmental benefits for the majority poor on the continent.