Afr.j. polit. sci. (2000), Vol. 5 No. 1, 14-28 
African Renaissance in the New 
Millennium? From Anarchy to 
Emerging Markets?* 
Timothy M. Shaw and Julius E. Nyang'oro" 
Abstract 
The political economy of Africa is at the crossroads. The centrally controlled 
economies are giving way to global liberalism. Yet many of the continent's 
economies are still suffering from the residual effects of centralism, while poorly 
adjusting to the new dispensation. In the meantime, regionalism as a development 
strategy seems to be getting a new lease of life in the general development 
discourse in Africa while assuming varying forms. Furthermore, under 
globalization, Africa maybe on the verge of becoming an important player as an 
emerging market. Such forms of development are creating a dynamism in the new 
political economy of the continent, which may drive the African renaissance. 
Introduction 
"Globalization offers African countries opportunities for accelerating the process 
of economic recovery."' 
Slowly and painfully, the era of Africa's Big Men is grinding to a halt... As the 
Big Men leave the stage, they are being harried by a loose alliance known as the 
"New Africans", comprising Ethiopia, Eritrea, Uganda, Rwanda, Angola and 
Congo-Kinshasa (ex-Zaire) while South Africa looks on approvingly ... Putting 
Central Africa together again will be Africa's dominant project in 1998.2 
Sub-Saharan Africa is undergoing its most profound changes since the early 
years of independence ... Africa's postcolonial despotic order is finally breaking 
down... Africa's new leaders have begun to fill the vacuum left by the end of the 
Cold War... Africa's new bloc... is led by market-oriented men who earned their 
mandates through protracted struggle... Together they comprise a new political- 
W27-O353 © 2000 African Association of Political Science
African Renaissance in the New Millennium? 15 
military alliance that is engaged in joint campaigns from the Great Lakes to the 
Sahara. However imperfect, the bloc changes Africa's balance of power3 West 
Africa is becoming the symbol of worldwide demographic, environmental and 
social stress, in which criminal anarchy emerges as the real "strategic" danger.4 
The African continent - companies and communities as well as states and 
regimes - is at a crossroads as the new millennium approaches in terms of both 
development performance and policies. After almost two decades of problematic 
reforms - political and social as well as economic - its stereotypical image of 
marginalisation compounded by "anarchy" may be yielding to a more positive 
status of "emerging markets". 
As the limits of globalisation become apparent everywhere symbolised by the 
intense crisis in Asian economies - given the decline of the near-Newly Industrialised 
Countries (NICs) "Asian values" are no longer so attractive as models? - 
prospects for an authentic and sustainable "African renaissance" improve.5 
This paper seeks to understand the apparent turnaround in the continent's 
fortunes as well as persona as it envisages the next century6: how its resilience - 
beyond Afro-pessimism7 - begins to stand in contrast to the contagious "Asian flu" 
around the Pacific Rim as well as to the unanticipated costs of "big bangs" in the 
former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.8 We conclude by identifying "lessons 
learned" for the continent since the early 1900s, with implications for several 
parallel disciplines/discourses, not just African or development studies but also 
comparative and international politics, comparative foreign policies, comparative 
regionalisms, international political economy and security studies and policies. 
This somewhat unanticipated, yet welcome conjuncture is a function of changing 
"triangular" relations among states, economies and societies at three interrelated 
levels in particular: internal, regional and global. Sustainable development 
has always meant change in both these trios - i.e. both sectors and levels — yet 
analyses and policies have all too often tended to focus on the rise and fall of 
national regimes to the exclusion of other forces and contexts. Susan Strange 
correctly and persuasively argues that "international relations" at the end of this 
century is not just state-state but also state-firm and firm-firm.9 Given the rise in 
both the practice and analysis of "civil society" under the "new" world order, such 
antidotes to state-centrism need now to embrace society as well as governments 
and companies; i .e. we need to bring civil society into our purview. Nowhere is this 
more imperative today than in the South, especially Africa. 
Contemporary Continent: Emerging Characteristics Require 
Changing Perspectives and Policies 
After almost two decades of proliferating (in terms of numbers of both states and 
sectors affected) structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), the continent's 
governments are quite diminished (if not in some cases "failed" or "collapsed")
16 Timothy M. Shaw and Julius E. Nyang 'oro 
whereas its corporations and civil societies are considerably enhanced. The initial 
generation of SAP conditionalities - economic liberalisation - encouraged the 
private (international rather than national) sector through deregulation, devaluation, 
privatisation, etc; in practice, this typically advanced the informal sectors as 
coping mechanisms in response to the shrinkage of the formal. The second decade 
of post-Cold War political liberalisation advanced formal, multiparty democracy 
through new constitutions and elections. 
In short, by the end of the century, Africa's internal and international political 
economies are characterised by the active roles of all three types of actors; i.e. not 
just states but also companies and civil societies. However, the balance among 
these varies between countries and periods. Moreover, as these three are quite 
heterogeneous, numerous typologies have been generated for each type, usually in 
splendid isolation from each other. 
Such differences and varieties are important as both economic and political 
liberalisations lead towards external or structural "interventions". The former 
advances what Christopher Clapham calls "the externalisation of economic 
management".10 The latter leads to what he further characterises as "the 
externalisation of political accountability"." In turn, ensuing "internal" social 
conflicts generate demands/opportunities for "humanitarian interventions" in 
"complex political emergencies". Such responses vary widely in intent, scale, 
character and length. Nicholas Wheeler defines any such "non-forcible" intervention 
as "the pacific activities of states, international organisations and nongovernmental 
organizations in delivering humanitarian aid and facilitating third 
party conflict resolution and reconstruction"12. 
Economic and political liberalisations are not necessarily compatible as the 
former lead to increased inequalities which may be reflected in the latter, in some 
instances leading to the very social conflicts to which diverse Peacekeeping 
Operations (PKOs) seek to respond (see below). Indeed, the expansion of civil 
society is caused by two contradictory responses to neo-liberalism: resistance to 
reductions of expenditures on and indicators for basic human needs (BHNs) on 
the one hand and opportunities/demands for increased services via INGOs. Hence 
the contradictory character of civil society, especially apparent within national and 
international NGOs: resistance and subcontracting. And as we will see further 
below, such tensions spill-over into the peace-building nexus, where INGOs have 
become crucial adjuncts to states' peacekeeping forces. 
Together, companies and civil societies have begun to complement the state as 
major actors in the continent's inter- or trans-national relations. So many local and 
global issues require the active involvement of a range of heterogeneous actors, 
leading to complex yet more representative debates and outcomes. 
This is especially so as SAPs along with the general trend of globalisation lead 
to external economic management and external political accountability. Indeed,
African Renaissance in the New Millennium? 17 
the latter puts apparent moves towards democratisation into perspective: as some 
if notall African polities appear to be moving towards greater degrees of openness, 
so their authority is being undermined by external conditionalities and competitiveness 
so that any effective recapture of internal sovereignty requires determined 
and innovative "foreign" as well as "domestic" policies. 
Moreover, without due attention to the development of civil societies — a 
function of both new spaces/opportunities as well as of demands for policy 
changes/service provision - we cannot begin to account for the continent's 
apparent revival under the dictates of neo-liberal conditionalities. Any prospect of 
renaissance (see (vi) below) is due not so much to formal economic then political 
and other liberalisations as to the adaptability of African communities under stress, 
from droughts and floods to civil strife and peace-building responses. And such 
dynamism occurs not only internally but also regionally as suggested in (iii) below. 
At the outset, however, it is important to note that not all African(ist) scholars 
would share our relative optimism. Much of the field is fraught because of attacks 
from two sides: rational choice and global studies on the one hand and black 
"Africanist" exclusivism on the other. The middle ground of the mainstream has 
been eroded by thi s pincer movement, which may continue to threaten the field into 
the new millennium whatever the accomplishments of the "new African" alliance. 
Political Economy: From Developmental Crises to 
Emerging Markets? 
"Africa is the Cinderella of emerging markets, better known for war and famine 
than booming stock markets. But a growing band of investors is being attracted to 
the continent's nascent stock markets after some spectacular gains in the past two 
years".13 
"Africa's sustained, albeit fragile, recovery over three consecutive years is 
encouraging, especially in relation to the poor record of the preceding 15 years".14 
After more than one and a half decades of structural adjustment "reforms ", with 
their relentless and proliferating conditionalities, Africa's political economies are 
quite transformed from their post-independence state-centrism even if their debt 
burdens have yet to be fully lifted. In the 1970s, African regimes competed with 
each other to see who could be the most "African socialist" or interventive. By the 
late 1990s, however, they're competing in terms of who offers the most investorfriendly 
environment. Over the first half of the present decade, private investment 
has jumped tenfold, from less than $1 billion a year in the early-1990s to almost 
$12 billion in 1996. Furthermore, several of the continent's twenty-odd stock 
markets are in the vanguard of emerging markets: rates of return in Africa averaged 
24% between 1990 and 1994 compared with 18% for all emerging markets. And 
in the second half of the 1990s, they declined less precipitously than those in the 
NICs.
18 Timothy M. Shaw and Julius E. Nyang 'oro 
However, there have been profound social costs and consequences of almost 
two decades of structural adjustments as political economies/cultures respond to 
exponential "shocks". Once again, as in the era of modernisation, the continent has 
served as something of a laboratory, this time for the former Second World as well 
as for the rest of the Third. Happily, because of the unacceptable social costs - the 
so-called "externalities" - the Bank has finally begun to reconsider at least some 
of its theological espousal of SAPs as noted in (iv) below.15 And the Jubilee 2000 
and related pressures for significant debt relief continue to gather momentum, in 
part for reasons of sustainable human development: onto a heterogeneous coalition 
to design and effect a post-"Washington consensus" over partnerships and 
renaissance! 
Moreover, Africa still reveals much about the other side of globalisation - i.e. 
the inequalities and the costs, both social and ecological — as suggested by the 
"new" security perspective (see (v) below) which itself is reinforced by several 
new phenomena on the continent such as street children let alone child soldiers, 
proliferation of land-mines and other so-called small arms, private and vigilante 
policing arrangements, etc. 
Hence the intrinsic/organic connection between PKOs and emerging markets: 
Direct Foreign Investment (DFI) and tourists for example cannot be attracted 
without the confidence of economic and social security/stability, which degrees of 
redistribution and confidence building measures (CBMs) may ensure/enhance. So, 
risk assessments/credit ratings are endless and crucial given pressures for competitiveness. 
But they are undertaken by non-African agencies, using universal, 
economistic criteria. 
Thus, because of cheap air travel and a declining shilling, Kenya may have 
attracted significant numbers of tourists to its game parks and coastal beaches in 
the 1980s, but once it became somewhat notorious for insecurity as well as growing 
infrastructural deficiencies such flows declined. Furthermore, while it may have 
successfully diversified into non-traditional exports - horticultural products are 
now its third export after tea and coffee - increases in ecological and BHN costs 
are exponential. 
Nevertheless, the transformation in Africa's macro economies is quite profound, 
as indicated, for example, in the burgeoning of its stock markets. Those in 
Harare, Johannesburg, Lagos and Nairobi have a considerable vintage, but they 
have expanded their listings and turnover in the 1990s, in part because of foreign 
investor interest, some of it from foreign mutual and pension funds, some of whom 
sanctioned settler states' race relations before majority rule. Moreover, these 
pioneers have been joined by new exchanges in Botswana, Cote d'lvoire, Ghana, 
Malawi, Mauritius, Namibia and Swaziland, with others in places like Dakar, 
Dar es Salaam and Kampala to follow.1615 of the continent's 53 countries now 
have a stock market, just over half of them in the SADC region. Such stock markets
African Renaissance in the New Millennium? 19 
symbolise and facilitate the privatisation of the economy, as ex-parastatals can be 
floated and traded and building societies de-mutualised. Moreover, private mutual 
and pension funds, as well as mortgage and finance companies can invest their 
holdings more readily, while conglomerates can be more easily unbundled. And in 
the case of hitherto settler states, especially South Africa, black empowerment/ 
redistribution can thereby be advanced. The Johannesburg Stock Exchange is the 
continent's oldest, biggest and most sophisticated. It has weathered not only 
sanctions and unrest in the previous quarter-century, but also the transition in the 
early 1990s along with the drop in the price of gold. Yet in mid-1998, it reached 
record stock prices and attracted record numbers of listings. African markets led 
all other emerging markets in 1994, partially because of the "discovery" of the 
continent by global mutual funds. 
At the other end of the spectrum, micro credit has also been growing, partially 
through the adoption of Grameen-style not-for-profit associations; i.e. (I)NGOs at 
the border of civil society and the economy rather than the polity. Yet most 
informal credit in Africa remains private, expensive and open to mafia-style 
manipulation because it is in scarce supply. 
Further, in terms of post-industrial niches, Africa has begun to play an important 
role not only in terms of green tourism/ozone replenishment/biodiversity, but also 
in the telecommunications revolution, especially the internet/world-wide web/ 
satellite television etc. This is especially so for South Africa, which has the largest 
server on the continent as well as host to M-Net/DStv etc, which now stretch 
throughout COMBSA states. Africa Telecom 98 was held in Johannesburg, where 
a continent-wide plan was agreed between states, international agencies and 
private sectors to spend some US$750 billion over the next five years to almost 
double the number of phones from 14 to 23 million. South Africa is by far the 
largest host country in terms of servers and has over 125 000 internet host 
computers; aside from Egypt and Morocco in North Africa, the other major hosts 
are in Southern and Eastern Africa. Africa Online now serves seven cities, from 
Johannesburg to Nairobi and Mombasa and over to Accra and Abidjan. The 
continent has made something of a virtue out of necessity by "leapfrogging" 
technologies, going straight to cordless, cellular phones, especially in the regions 
with the least established infrastructure - West and Central Africa - or so-called 
collapsed or failed countries recovering from sustained civil conflict such as 
Angola and Somalia. And its larger cities are beginning to host call centres based 
on the new high-tech infrastructure as well as relatively cheap and English or 
French-speaking labour, typically trained in private technology colleges such as 
Damelin and Varsity College in Southern Africa. 
Finally, under SAP reforms and market pressures - endless downward pressure 
to the bottom for competitiveness - several African states have moved to establish 
Export Processing Zones (EPZs), mainly along the coast and on islands like
20 Timothy M. Shaw and Julius E. Nyang 'oro 
Mauritius, but also inland, such as Athi River outside Nairobi on the Masai 
plains. These enable the continent to be part of post-fordist, flexible global 
production chains in which only some parts/procedures are undertaken in any 
one location. These may also have implications for regional constructs and 
communications. 
New Regionalisms: Onto Civil Societies and 
Security Communities 
"The end of the Cold War has certainly changed the nature of international 
relations. From the point of view of the South, it has both offered opportunities, in 
new coalitions and trading partnerships, and provided new constraints, in new 
political and economic conditionalities. For the discipline of IR, the end of the Cold 
War has opened up the security agenda to new thinking which has the potential to 
include concerns about development in a meaningful manner." " 
"Africa as a whole has begun to make significant economic and political 
progress in recent years, but in many parts of the continent progress remains 
threatened or impeded by conflict." ls 
Africa in the late twentieth century has become the location of several innovative 
and problematic experiments in micro- through meso- to macro-level regional 
organisations, not just of the formal variety but also of less formal type: from de 
facto informal regional economic arrangements and emerging regional civil 
societies to embryonic regional security communities in addition to ecological and 
corporate regions, not all of which are necessarily consistent or compatible: onto 
competitive, flexible and/or open regions.19 
Such creative regionalisms suggest the desirability of revisiting and revising 
Samir Amin's pioneering schema for the continent's real regional political 
economies in the early 1970s: the trio of Africas of the "colonial trade economy", 
"concession-owning companies" and "labour reserves".20 Given contemporary 
global and local political economies, all under the hegemony of neo-liberalism, as 
the new millennium approaches, there are now more than three Africas. In the early 
SAP era of the early 1980s, there was a division between reformers and nonreformers. 
As conditionalities proliferated in the early 1990s, there were distinctions 
of degree between formal multiparty democratisation: consolidating and 
fragile democracies.21 And by the late-1990s, as the divergencies of (incompatible?) 
liberalisations compounded, there appeared Africas of the failed or collapsed 
states22 and of peace-making operations as well as those of emerging 
markets. 
In addition to such established macro typologies, however, "new" meso-level 
inter-state regionalisms have emerged in response to the NIDL/NIDP as well as 
competitive regional proposals on and off the continent: from an expansive S ADC 
to a preoccupied ECOWAS and on to a revived and redirected IGAD and
African Renaissance in the New Millennium? 21 
innovative East African Cooperation. Typically, these less exclusive, more open 
and often asymmetric regionalisms, have increasingly gone beyond inter-state 
economic agreements to anticipate inter-regime security arrangements (see below) 
along with the involvement of the private sectors. The former was increasingly cast 
in terms of peacekeeping capacities (e.g. ECOMOG) and confidence-building 
measures (CBMs), often of a "track-two" variety; i.e. involving non-state actors 
such as think-tanks as well. And the latter typically incorporated larger corporations 
and chambers of commerce if not labour and more informal sectors. 
In addition, well-established intra- and extra-African multinational corporations 
(MNCs), especially private South African companies like AAC and SAB but 
also Zimbabwean companies like Delta and South African parastatals like Eskom, 
SAA and Transnet, are increasingly defining their own continent/regions though 
DFI and regional-scale hub facilities for both production and distribution. And 
major African cities and tourist destinations, increasingly connected through 
regional circuits, are linked into continental and global hotel chains, such as 
Intercontinental/Holiday Inn and Southern Sun (Southern Africa)/Serena (East 
Africa). 
And the continent is developing its own set of Asian-style, private sectoranimated 
transnational corridors and triangles, whether these are formally 
connected to established regional structures or not. These include the Maputo 
Corridor linking Gauteng to the Indian Ocean and Trans-Kalahari Corridor linking 
it to the Atlantic Ocean. Somewhat more distant dreams include Spatial Development 
Initiatives (SDI) along the Benguela, Nacala and Tazara corridors as well as 
the Kwazulu-Natal/Mozambique/Swaziland Lumbombo SDI and Kgalagadi Peace 
Park between Northern Cape and SouthwestBotswana. The corridor from Mombasa 
to Mbarara is crucial for the Great Lakes, and potentially could be traversed by a 
Rift Valley community from Addis Ababa down to Gauteng. 
Moreover, in association with such embryonic regional corridors/triangles/ 
SDIs, typically involving the private sector if not always local communities, the 
continent could yet advance some novel regional arrangements such as the Kagera 
River Basin, Great Lakes and Nile Valley as well as the macro-level Rift Valley 
"communities" with their transnational/ecological rather than inter-stateA-regime 
basis. Potentially these could become the basis for de facto realignments of official 
international borders. Already, the Maputo Corridor Company constitutes a novel 
form of extra-, sub- or non-state governance. As indicated in the following section, 
such contemporary non-governmental arrangements present profound implications 
for old-fashioned inter-state regionalisms. 
Unfortunately, relatively few regionalist structures on the continent to date 
embrace or reflect these dynamics or civil societies even if they build on shared 
cultures/ethnicities/identities, sporting interests and activities, shared media/ 
music, etc. Moreover, they rarely include ecological factors, such as common
22 Timothy M. Shaw and Julius E. Nyang 'oro 
water or energy resources, which will increasingly become some of the new 
security issues in the coming century; hence the crisis character of droughts and 
floods in El Nino and other years. IGAD has had a greater concern for desertification 
as has the Club du Sahel, but these have been (non- as well as inter-state) donordriven 
rather than indigenous initiatives. Seldom, except in a formal way in 
ECOWAS and in an informal way in SADC are issues of migration treated, even 
though the continent has in recent decades experienced large and growing numbers 
of economic, ecological and conflict refugees. 
In short, although civil societies at regional levels are dynamic (^/regional NGO 
groupings like FAVDO, MWENGO and RADEV as well as de facto regional 
media like M-Net/DSTV and Weekly Mail and Guardian) they are yet to be 
recognised in emerging regionalist arrangements. This has important implications 
for the possibilities of enhanced and sustained human development/security in the 
new millennium as indicated in the following interrelated pair of sections. 
Nevertheless, there is a new spirit of openness apparent in some African 
regional groupings, such as the new Centre for Civil Society Organisation in ECA. 
And the need for effectiveness means that this UN Commission has closed or 
amalgamated some moribund agencies. It also has redesignated and diverted 
resources to its sub-regional offices as Subregional Development Centres to 
facilitate their role as building blocks with established groupings for the expected 
African Economic Community. 
Human Development: Towards Sustainable Democracies? 
The need to tailor our thinking about development strategies and our policy 
recommendations to the distinctive problems of each country, coupled with the 
continuing evolution of the global economy requires that we keep learning and 
adapting our views, otherwise yesterday's truths may well become tomorrow's 
mistakes.23 
The World Bank's World Development Report 1997 marked the end of the era 
of neo-liberal triumphalism and the inauguration of a new "Washington consensus" 
about the need for partnership. In turn, this new acceptance of corporations 
and civil societies has led to the generation of two sets of typologies to account for 
their heterogeneity: on the one hand, varieties of companies and NGOs and, on the 
other hand, typologies of the emerging patterns of interaction among this trio of 
actors; i.e. states as well as MNCs and NGOs. 
In turn, there is beginning to be a revisionist debate about the utility of the notion 
"civil society" in Africa as elsewhere: is it too broad a concept as well as a creature 
of current hegemonic discourses? To be sure it needs to be subject to critical 
scrutiny, and diversity among NGOs, media, religions, ethnicities, etc should be 
recognised in typologies as well. But surely there are dangers in throwing the baby 
out with the bath water, especially when many Africans welcome its potential for
African Renaissance in the New Millennium? 23 
keeping state administrations at all levels a little more honest. Moreover, the 
concept comes under attack from a somewhat unlikely set of allies, such as oldfashioned 
leftists who see civil society undermining "class" forces and equally oldfashioned 
pluralists, who fear its erosion of formal party politics24! Meanwhile, the 
achievement of sustainable human development for all throughout the continent is 
jeopardised by the growing threat of human insecurity given the uneven incidence 
and impact of globalisation, structural adjustments, states' shrinkage and social 
conflicts. 
Human Security: New Threats/Peace-building Responses 
"Despite the devastation that armed conflicts bring, there are many who profit from 
chaos and lack of accountability, and who have little or no interest in stopping a 
conflict and much interest in prolonging it... 
In Liberia, the control and exploitation of diamonds, timber and other raw 
materials was one of the principal objectives of the warring factions ... The same 
can be said of Angola, where protracted difficulties in the peace process owed 
much to the importance of control over the exploitation of the country's lucrative 
diamond fields ... (and) Sierra Leone ... " M 
Africa and Africans in particular suffered under the old post-war, bipolar 
dispensation. Conversely,, it is the continent where a human security perspective 
and prospective may lead towards stability and sustainability. Its inherited tensions 
were frozen by the Cold War, only to explode after the dismantling of the iron 
curtain in the 1990s. Hence the proliferation of both social conflicts and peacebuilding 
responses after almost two decades of wrenching adjustment reforms. 
Human security perspectives on the continent can be subdivided into at least 
three types. First, a seemingly exponentially growing range of new security issues 
now extends from community, ecological, economic and gender security to the 
drugs/gangs/guns syndrome and onto viruses, etc,25 even if these are problematic 
to both rank and react to. 
Second, new security issues arise from civil conflicts, leading to a range of 
responses, from early warning and confidence building through the active peacekeeping/
building phase and on, hopefully, to post-conflict reconstruction and 
redevelopment. At all stages, both international and non-governmental organisations 
are involved as well as states, albeit in changing proportions; from subcontracting 
to partnerships. 
And, third, if Africa has recently become the leading region for a range of peace 
operations/interventions, as indicated by the quotation at the start of this section, 
it has also been in the vanguard of "new" mercenary operations, by such groups as 
its own Executive Outcomes plus DSL, Sandline etc. And it has experienced more 
privatisation of security given the decay of the state: from ubiquitous armed guards 
from transnational companies to community-supported vigilante groups, all of
24 Timothy M. Shaw and Julius E. Nyang 'oro 
which take advantage of regime weaknesses to find market niches/community 
acceptance and exploit technological advances such as infrared capacities/cellular 
phones. 
Meanwhile, notwithstanding this trio of types of security threat, renewed 
optimism about the prospects of human development/security in much if not all of 
the continent has spawned a new consciousness of, as well as discourse about, the 
possibilities of a "renaissance" 
Rise (and Demise?) of the African Renaissance 
Reflective of the post-Afro-pessimistic era, by the mid 1990s, a new debate was 
beginning to emerge characterised as the "African Renaissance": renewed confidence 
and optimism that some if not all of the continent could begin to transcend 
its inherited problems and define its own path; i.e. indigenous definitions of human 
development/security. Such claims have been articulated by the trio of inter- or 
trans-national actors identified at the start of this chapter - i.e. states, companies 
and civil societies - particularly the first. 
In turn, the notion has been advanced especially by the new set of latecomer, 
post-insurgent states in Eritrea, South Africa and Uganda: the erstwhile "alliance" 
of "New Africans" suggested in the second opening citation. Just as earlier eras of 
post-nationalist/liberation movement regimes generated first the Mulungushi 
Club and then the Frontline States, so the latest set of "new states" in the mid-1990s 
led to notions of an African Renaissance. 
This Renaissance has been defined in a variety of not always compatible ways, 
orthodox economists - e.g. the World B ank and leading corporations—and external 
state (e.g. US) and non-state donors (e.g. Oxfam) the new generation of national 
leaders on the continent (e.g. Isaias Afwerki, Thabo Mbeki, and Yoweri Museveni).27 
Who defines and identifies with the concept/claim is not unimportant as its 
authenticity/legitimacy are thereby determined. Is it a machiavellian disguise for 
renewed US and/or South African dominance? Does it serve to justify regime 
changes in, say, Rwanda, Congo and Brazzaville: a set of African dominoes, which 
may yet (over?) stretch to the Southern Sudan and onto Kenya? Is it a timely 
counter to the fraying of "Asian values" in East Asia? Or does it merely constitute 
the latest version of post-independence aspirations which include aspects of 
culture as well as political and economic liberalisation etc and so may serve to 
camouflage difficult policy choices and directions, even regimes' or incumbents' 
intolerance or arrogance? 
Ambiguities about this concept's genesis and effects have already generated a 
new debate. But it remains symbolic of a new spirit, one which has not been 
credible since the heady days of the first round of new, albeit weak, states in the 
early-1960s: Africa's independence era. It may also lead towards new forms of 
realism on the continent as state forces are mobilised to advance regime change in
African Renaissance in the New Millennium ? 25 
neighbouring countries, as in Congo (Brazzaville) in the mid-1990s. In turn, such 
forcible changes may lead towards a revision of the continent's inherited borders, 
a century after the Treaty of Berlin first designated them. 
Africa in the Twenty-first Century: Less Marginal/More 
Integrated? 
After a period of unprecedented decline, Africa's development prospects now 
appear brighter than at any time since the decade of independence. In 1995, more 
than half the nations of Africa enjoyed real GDP growth in excess of their 
population growth. At least a third of these countries recorded growth rates of 6 per 
cent and above in 1995, and only three countries experienced negative growth 
compared with 14 countries the year before.28 
By substituting caricature for analysis, Afro-pessimists have offered a simplistic 
and distorted portrayal of Africa which only serves to reinforce deeply 
held racial stereotypes, perpetuate a distinctly distorted view of contemporary 
African realities, and deepen America's reluctance to become more engaged 
there.29 
Given the above cautiously optimistic perspective, which reflects current 
analyses and discourses on the continent itself, African countries and communities 
may be more or less marginal/integrated in the new millennium depending not only 
on their location, but also depending on their relationship with the trio of states, 
corporations and civil societies. 
In turn, at the start of the new millennium, this may lead towards a revived/ 
redirected OAU/ECA, especially given their novel peace operations and civil 
society mechanisms. Indeed, they are increasingly reaching beyond states towards 
the other pair of non-state actors in a search for strategic non-state partners given 
the financial and often intellectual impoverishment of their official membership: 
onto mixed actor coalitions not just over bio-diversity and landmines but also 
agricultural commodities (e.g. Cairns Group), Atlantic and Indian Ocean Rims, 
currency speculation, debt burdens, development corridors/triangles, droughts, 
new regionalisms, oceans development, peace-building partnerships, privatisation 
of security, etc. 
One symbolic anniversary, but of decreasingly substantive importance, which 
coincides with the end of the century is the renewal and redirection, if not revival, 
of the Lom6 Convention between the expanding EU and the growing number of 
ACP countries. Whilst its economic and financial centrality has long since past, 
even for the francophone states, its potential in terms of new multilateral conditionalities, 
such as human rights and democratic practices, remains. This is especially 
so for Africa, given new security/peacekeeping and related issues like ecology and 
migration. Yet the continent is already divided between associated Mediterranean 
countries along with the special case of South Africa. Nevertheless, even if of
26 Timothy M. Shaw and Julius E. Nyang'oro 
residual salience, some version of Lome" will be extended into the twenty-first 
century, hopefully with some North-South version of the Maastricht Treaty on 
social agendas.30 
Implications for Related Fields of Analysis: Into the New 
Century 
Africa's relations with the outside world were privatised, not only through their 
subversion by the private interests of politicians ... but through the displacement 
of traditional state-to-state relations as a result of the processes of globalisation... 
the privatisation or de-stating of Africa's international relations... seeks to correct 
a view of international relations which placed excessive or even exclusive 
emphasis on the role of states ...3I 
... the study of development has been relatively neglected in modern IR... the 
question of development can contribute to the creation of a more reflective and 
inclusive discipline which is global in scope ...What would be needed is the 
creation of a new global political economy of development which takes account of 
the specificity of development in a changing global system ...M 
As already indicated above, this analysis of Africa at century's end holds 
relevance for several parallel discourses over comparative and international 
politics/IPE/development and security studies, including the broad range of peacebuilding 
partnerships, comparative (both between states and between official and 
non-state actors) foreign policies, and new regionalisms. It may also contain some 
lessons for as well as from Africa, such as the potential of the African Renaissance 
or the continent's new realist alliance. 
Compared to the analysis of African realities of only a few years ago, the present 
revisionist perspective incorporates a trio of crucial issues hardly raised just five 
years ago: (a) civil societies, (b) peace building, and(c) emerging markets. These 
clearly hold relevance for a set of interrelated fields and debates, even if they are 
largely absent from Dickson's otherwise informed perspective on development 
and international relations. All but the last cluster are treated in Clapham' s seminal 
monograph. The interrelatedness of these five sets of factors is indicated in, say, 
the variety of (I)NGO participation in PKOs or the roles of MNCs in new regional 
corridors or triangles. It is such novel dimensions which give rise to sufficient 
optimism that the notion of an African renaissance is no longer fanciful. 
But the longevity of the "new African" alliance cannot be assured given the 
intimidating range of development challenges which confront the continent, in 
part a function of poor leadership over the last quarter century. As already 
emphasised, DFI and emerging markets require economic and political as well 
as ecological and policy stability, hence the continued relevance of track-two 
CBMs and peace-building coalitions. As has become all too apparent in the last 
half of the 1990s, even in the supposed success stories of the Asian NICs, security
African Renaissance in the New Millennium? 27 
cannot be taken for granted, whether defined by local communities or currency 
speculators. 
Notes 
* An earlier and shorter version of this article appeared in Richard Stubbs and 
Geoffrey R.D. Underhill (eds) Political Economy and the Changing Global 
Order (Toronto: OUP, 2000. Second edition) pp. 275-284. 
** Professor of Political Science and International Development Studies and 
Director of the Centre for Foreign Policy Studies, Dalhousie University, 
Canada and Professor and Chair of African and Afro-American Studies, 
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA. 
1 ADB "Fostering Private Sector Development in Africa" African Development 
Report 1997 (Oxford: OUP, 1997) p. 6. 
2 Patrick Smith "The Big Men Go" The World in 1998 (London: The Economist, 
1997) pp. 85-86. 
3 Dan Connell and Frank Smyth "Africa's New Bloc" Foreign Affairs 77(2), 
March/April 1998, pp. 80 and 93-94. 
4 Robert Kaplan "The Coming Anarchy" Atlantic Monthly 273(2), February 
1994, p. 46. 
5 See Peter Vale and Sipho Maseko "South Africa and The African Reanissance" 
International Affairs 74(2), April 1998, pp. 271-287. 
6 See "Africa" Current History 97(619), May 1998, pp. 193-237. 
7 See David F. Gordon and Howard Wolpe "The Other Africa: An end to Afropessimism" 
World Policy Journal 15(1), Spring 1998, pp. 49-59. 
8 See also our "Conclusion: African Foreign Policies and the Next Millennium 
- alternative perspectives" in Stephen Wright (ed.) African Foreign Policies 
(Boulder: Westview, 1998), pp. 237-248. 
9 See Susan Strange "Rethinking Structural Change in the International 
Political Economy: states, firms and diplomacy" in Stubbs and Underhill 
(eds) Political Economy and The Changing Global Order (firstedition) 
(Toronto: McClelland and Stewart), pp. 103-115. 
10 Christopher Clapham Africa and The International System (Cambridge: 
CUP, 1996) p. 169. 
11 Ibid., p.m. 
12 Nicholas Wheeler "Humanitarian Intervention and World Politics" in John 
Baylis and Steve Smith (eds) The Globalization of World Politics: An 
Introduction to International Relations (Oxford: OUP, 1997) p. 407. 
13 Sunday Morning Post (Hong Kong) 14 September 1997. 
14 ADB African Development Report 1997 p. 35. 
15 World Bank World Development Report 1997 (New York: OUP, 1997).
28 Timothy M. Shaw and Julius E. Nyang 'oro 
16 See IFC Emerging Stock Markets Factbook 1996 (Washington, 1996). 
17 Anna K. Dickson Development and International Relations: A Critical 
Introduction (Cambridge: Polity, 1997) p. 149. 
18 UN "UNSG Report April 1998", p. 1. 
19 See five-volume subseries edited by Bjorn Hettne, Andras Inotai and 
Osvaldo Sunkel on "new regionalisms" for UNU/WIDER; their first such 
title is Globalism and the New Regionalism (London: Macmillan). 
20 See Samir Amin "Underdevelopment and Dependence in Black Africa - 
origins and contemporary forms" Journal of Modern African Studies 10(4), 
December 1972, pp. 503-524. 
21 See Michael Bratton and Nicholas van de Walle Democratic Experiments in 
Africa: Regime Transitions in Comparative Perspective (New York: CUP, 
1997). 
22 See I William Zartman Collapsed States: The Disintegration and Restoration 
of Legitimate Authority (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1998). 
23 Joseph E Stiglitz and Lyn Squire "International Development: is itpossible?" 
Foreign Policy 110, Spring 1998, p. 150. 
24 Cf Chris Allen "Who Needs Civil Society?" Review of African Political 
Economy 24(73), September 1997, pp. 329-337. 
25 UN "Report of the UN Secretary-General to the Security Council ... on 
Africa" pp. 3-4. 
26 Cf. UNDP Human Development Report 1994 (New York: OUP, 1994). 
27 See Connell and Smyth "Africa's New Bloc" p. 88; Cf. Vale and Maseko 
"South Africa and the African Renaissance". 
28 ECA "Proposed Programme of Work and Priorities for Biennum 1998- 
1999" (Addis Ababa, March 1997. E/ECA/CM.23/10) p. 10. 
29 Gordon and Wolpe "The Other Africa" p. 59. 
30 See Gordon Crawford "Whither Lome? The mid-term review and the decline 
of partnership" Journal of Modern African Studies 34(3), September 1996, 
pp. 503-518 and Kaye Whiteman "Africa, the ACP and Europe: The lessons 
of 25 years" Development Policy Review 16(1), March 1998, pp. 29-37. 
31 Clapham Africa and the International System pp. 256 and 265. 
32 Dickson Development and International Relations pp. 22-23.