Jesse Salah Ovadia

The dual nature of local content in Angola's oil and gas industry: development vs. elite accumulation

Abstract After decades of underdevelopment and conflict in the face of massive resource wealth, Angola is putting in place new strategies to dramatically increase its participation in its oil & gas and related services sectors. Although ‘local content’, or ‘Angolanização’, has been in place for decades, it has largely failed to increase the developmental benefits accruing from the countrys resource wealth. The new local content push is likely to succeed at promoting economic growth. However, the policies have also become important mechanisms for unequal growth and new forms of elite accumulation. This paper reviews the historical context, legal framework, and current impact of local content in order to emphasise their dual role in creating development while concentrating elite power in Angola.

The Making of Oil-backed Indigenous Capitalism in Nigeria

There has been considerable growth in the past few years in the number and size of Nigerian companies providing services to the oil and gas industry. The capacity of these companies, enhanced by local content policy, will not only create economic development in the industry, but will also likely boost the development of Nigerias manufacturing and service economies. While ‘Nigerian content’ faces many challenges in terms of implementation, it has made and will continue to make a significant impact on the economy of Nigeria and may also be making a significant impact on the political economy. Powerful interests have helped ensure that the Nigerian elite will be the primary beneficiaries of Nigerian content. Through interviews and case studies, this article argues that by embracing Nigerian content as a new strategy of accumulation, the elite are creating more capitalistic social relations of production in Nigeria.

Stepping Back from the Brink: A Review of the 2008 Ghanaian Election from the Capital of the Northern Region

Abstract During the 2008 Ghanaian election, the threat of violence in northern Ghana, due to an unresolved chieftaincy dispute in the Dagbon Traditional Area, brought the city of Tamale to the brink of widespread conflict. The dispute divided communities on the basis of religion, familial ties, and partisan affiliation. With high stakes, even higher tensions, and party supporters on both sides organized and armed. This article blends interviews and observations in order to explore what occurred during the election and, more importantly, what did not. While the end result diffused the mounting tensions, the underlying factors that brought the community so close to the brink remain. Moving forward, underdevelopment and conflict in the north must be addressed in order to ensure peace and stability in the Dagomba Kingdom and throughout the country.

The theory and practice of building developmental states in the Global South

Abstract Reviewing decades of thinking regarding the role of the state in economic development, we argue for the continued relevance of the concept of the ‘developmental state’. With reference to Argentina, Brazil, Ethiopia, Rwanda and China, we contend that new developmental states are evidence of a move beyond the historical experience of East Asian development. Further, we argue for the applicability of the developmental state framework to key questions of governance, institution building, industrial policy and the extractive industries, as well as to a wide variety of cases of successful and failed state-led development in the early twenty-first century.

Studying the developmental state: theory and method in research on industrial policy and state-led development in Africa

Abstract This paper examines theoretical and methodological issues in the study of African developmental states. We argue that applying this concept beyond East Asia must take into account changes in the global economic context – in particular systemic tendencies towards deficient consumer demand – to uncover the conditions under which demand for commodity production remains or becomes expansionary. We further argue for a mixed methods case study approach to structural transformation, blending quantitative and qualitative evidence at multiple levels of analysis. The examples of concrete manufacturing and oil and gas in Nigeria and Tanzania illustrate our approach to researching state-led development in Africa.

Angola: Civil Society Actors and Petroleum Management

Angola has enjoyed few development benefits from its petroleum resources. This chapter describes how the ruling party’s periodic clampdowns on civil society and increasingly heavy-handed tactics serve to limit the autonomy of many actors to influence public debate. As a result, both reformist and confrontational strategies are unlikely to have a significant impact on the government’s management of petroleum resources. An important aspect of the situation in Angola is the polarization of society and the country’s decades of civil war, driven in part by external powers using different Angolan political-military blocs as proxies. In that regard, there are similarities with the polarization of several Latin American oil- and gas-producing states, but the role of external political influence and the level of violence have probably been greater in Angola. Angola also resembles the post-Soviet states in that there is a relatively diverse and active civil society, but some of the main civil society actors have been created, promoted or co-opted by the state.

State-led industrial development, structural transformation and elite-led plunder: Angola (2002-2013) as a developmental state

From 2002 to 2013, Angola engaged in large‐scale state‐led reconstruction and development alongside an elite‐led appropriation and seizure of national assets. Until the oil price shock, Angola had been succeeding in promoting rapid economic growth, and possibly even significant social development, alongside a massive grab of wealth and power by local elites. Today, though an economic crisis has taken hold, frequent predictions of the countrys imminent collapse have yet to be fulfilled. This article reviews the states development planning and expenditure with a focus on public investment and industrial development to determine to what extent Angola during this period might be considered a developmental or petro‐developmental state. It is argued that, while more significant than generally thought, petro‐developmental outcomes were and are limited by the autocratic and neopatrimonial tendencies of the Angolan elite. Nevertheless, limited success with structural transformation may have lasting effects. Following its long civil war, the conditions existed for Angola to follow a new path of state‐led development. Though it may now be more difficult, structural transformation and economic diversification remain the only path to economic and social development.