Political Power and Social Class in the Neo-Colonial African State

bibliographic database
Line

Periodical article

Title:	Political Power and Social Class in the Neo-Colonial African State
Author:	Charney, Craig
Year:	1987
Periodical:	Review of African Political Economy
Volume:	14
Issue:	38
Period:	April
Pages:	48-65
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Africa
Subjects:	political systems neocolonialism Politics and Government
External link:	https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03056248708703713
Abstract:	The premise of this paper is that the neocolonial State is a type of capitalist State associated with a particular stage of capitalist development in Africa, and produced by a given set of class struggles. The paper analyses the neocolonial State on the basis of concepts drawn from the work of Gramsci, Althusser and Poulantzas. In their perspective, class domination is produced by a combination of force and hegemony. The paper shows that the neocolonial State has a different basis for 'hegemony' - clientelism - than in the centre States, and that it is particularist not 'national'. Transnational capital is the hegemonic class and the indigenous petty bourgeoisie the reigning class, whose economy remains extroverted and subordinated to the world market, and which diffuses commodity relations within precapitalist modes of production. The paper also explores the circumstances under which there could be a break up of the dominant class basis of and of factional popular support for the neocolonial State. Bibliogr., note, sum.