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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:The Political Economy of Inappropriate Technology: Industrialization in Sub-Saharan Africa
Author:James, JeffreyISNI
Year:1996
Periodical:Development and Change
Volume:27
Issue:3
Period:July
Pages:415-430
Language:English
Geographic term:Subsaharan Africa
Subjects:industrial development
public enterprises
technology
Development and Technology
Economics and Trade
External link:https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7660.1996.tb00597.x
Abstract:This article takes as its point of departure the notion that technological problems lie at the heart of the poor performance of public investment projects in sub-Saharan Africa. It further suggests that most existing explanations of these problems fail to consider the possibility that the extraordinarily rapid expansion of public enterprises in the industrial sector has itself been closely associated with the observed patterns of technological behaviour in the sector. Partly on the basis of case study material drawn from the political science literature, the author argues that the expansion of public sector industrial enterprises in sub-Saharan Africa can be directly related to managerial objectives (such as power, patronage and institutional survival). These firms, it seems, are no less 'expansion-driven' or 'investment-hungry' than their State-owned counterparts in Eastern Europe. However, whereas the latter appear to exhibit some tendency to search for and develop capital-saving technologies, in Africa the public sector is led inexorably to highly labour-saving technologies that are strikingly inefficient and inappropriate in the local context. Much of this difference can be ascribed to the dominance of foreign aid in financing an 'expansion-driven' public sector in Sub-Saharan Africa. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum.
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