caveat emptor. ideological paradigms in decolonising and postcolonial africa alison rae jones

439 Pages·2010·12.21 MB·English

CAVEAT EMPTOR. IDEOLOGICAL PARADIGMS
IN DECOLONISING AND POSTCOLONIAL AFRICA
ALISON RAE JONES
Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Politics
University of KwaZulu-Natal
Pietermaritzburg campus
2006
DECLARATION
I declare this thesis to be entirely my own work except where otherwise
stated in the text.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Grateful acknowledgments are due to the following people:
My supervisor, Ralph Lawrence, Professor and Head of Policy and Development
Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg campus, for his patience over
the long haul, and for his valuable input.
Various members of the staff of the Department of Political Science and Public
Administration, University of Dar es Salaam, along with the Director, staff and
associates of the Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Foundation, Dar es Salaam, for agreeing to
share with me their knowledge and experience. Additional thanks are due to
Professor Daudi and Dr Fenella Mukangara for their helpfulness at critical junctures.
Dr Angela Chailla for facilitating my research at the Mwalimu Julius Nyerere
Foundation, and for her hospitality.
Mrs Darlene Holtz for facilitating my travel arrangements with typical thoughtfulness
and efficiency.
Mrs Jenny Abrams for supplementing my limited computer skills.
My children, Geoffrey and Megan - to whom this dissertation is dedicated - partly for
their unflagging interest in my work, but mostly for being themselves.
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ABSTRACT
The study is premised on a notion of 'African crisis'. Since the notion of crisis is
multi-dimensional, hence susceptible to variable interpretations and emphases, the
study posits and argues two interconnected hypotheses, thus operating within a finite
investigative and interpretive framework
It is hypothesised that a crisis of the state in Africa to a significant extent is a crisis in
the spheres of political legitimacy and social cohesion. As both spheres fall within
the operational ambit of ideology, the study examines the concept in some depth. In
order to investigate the problematic of ideology in decolonising and postcolonial
Africa, a distinction is made between ideology per se and phenomena and practices
deemed ideological. During a process of exploring and analysing this distinction,
cognisance is taken of the interface between ideology and social science paradigms.
From this interface emerges the notion of an 'ideological paradigm'.
Accordingly, it is hypothesised that two dominant paradigms in Cold War era Africa,
namely, modernisation theory and scientific Marxism, are implicated in the crisis of
the state. Included in this proposition is an argument that the application of
exogenous developmental schematics in effect reproduced a colonial ethos
inhospitable to endogenous innovation and initiative, not least in respect to the
formulation and application of ideologies adequately congruent with - hence
intelligible to - the lived worlds of Africans. Moreover, to the extent that the post
Cold War era is characterised by the dominance of a neoliberal paradigm, this
contention is of continuing relevance.
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The better to distinguish between an ideological paradigm and an ideology, the study
investigates two significant departures from paradigmatic convention in decolonising
Guinea-Bissau and postcolonial Tanzania. Both Amilcar Cabral and Julius Nyerere
articulated and applied ideologies on the whole grounded more in local contexts than
in exogenous paradigms. While Cabral's thesis is discussed at some length during the
course of a literature review, Ujamaa in Tanzania comprises the dissertation's main
case study. Tanzania is conceptualised as embarking on a post-independence quest
for an inclusive epistemology on which to base an ideology at once locus-specific and
informed by general tenets of human-centred socialism. From this quest emerged a
national ethic that - in a post Cold War era - continues to influence state-societal
relations in Tanzania, and thus has proven to be of lasting value.
IV
TABLE OF CONTENTS
SECTION ONE ELABORATION OF CONCEPTS, THEMES AND
ARGUMENTS
Chapter One Introduction: Addressing 'African Crisis' 1
Context of the research: an embattled sub-continent 3
Collation and contextualisation of themes 17
Statement of position and preliminary definition of terms. .24
Chapter Two Of Iron Cages and Paradigms 31
Paradigms and ideology 31
Ideology and the excluded middle 45
Exploring the science-ideology interface 49
Social science and ideology: some conclusions 61
Chapter Three Of Paradigms and Lived Worlds 65
Kuhn and Mannheim: crises and worldviews 65
Ideology and Utopia 72
Guevara's dawa 77
Chapter Four Varieties of Nationalism 91
Paradigmatic nationalisms 91
Inverting a realist formula: cultural nationalism 103
Section One: summary of argumentation 119
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SECTION TWO PARADIGM AND LITERATURE REVIEW AND
CRITIQUE
Chapter Five African Studies: Genesis and Contexts 122
Decolonising contexts 124
Cold War contexts 130
Chapter Six Orthodox Modernisation Theory 143
Systems theory 144
Modernising systems 150
Structural-functionalism 153
Behaviouralism 159
Chapter Seven Revised Modernisation Theory: Huntington 173
Binary organisation of key concepts 176
Endorsement of authoritarian one-party states 196
The long shadow of Hobbes' Leviathan 199
Chapter Eight Intra-Marxist Disputes and Eurocentric Antecedents 205
General tenets of dependency theory 206
Dependency theory's critique of the modernisation
paradigm 209
Scientific Marxism's critique of dependency theory 211
Issues of Marxist identity in Cold War era Africa 216
Science-centred versions of Marxism in Europe 218
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Extension to the Third World of Lenin's science of social
reality 224
Stalinist and post-Stalinist mutations 227
Humanist Marxism 231
Chapter Nine Varieties and Vicissitudes of Marxism in Africa 238
Fanon: 'the wretched of the earth' 240
Cabral: 'the human beings in our country' 256
Scientific socialists 270
Amin and Wallerstein: variations on a 'world systems'
theme 274
Summary and conclusions 284
SECTION THREE CASE STUDY AND CONCLUSION
Chapter Ten Ujamaa in Tanzania 287
Overview 288
Tanzania in paradigmatic context 290
Colonial - postcolonial problematics 300
The development of Nyerere's political thought 309
Ujamaa: conclusion 322
Chapter Eleven Conclusion 327
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NOTES AND REFERENCES 338
BIBLIOGRAPHY 412
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SECTION ONE
ELABORATION OF CONCEPTS,
THEMES AND ARGUMENTS