A new scramble for Africa?: imperialism, investment and development
2009 (English)Collection (editor) (Other academic)
Abstract [en]
Dramatically escalating prices of raw materials, driven by rapid industrialisation in China and other countries of the global South as well as by looming world shortages, had for the few years preceding the financial meltdown and global recession of 2009 promoted a new scramble for Africa’s natural resources. It signalled a brisk turnaround in prospects for what The Economist had dubbed the ‘hopeless continent’ as recently as 1999. However, while average growth rates across the continent have increased, the implications for Africa’s development were and remain at best dubious.
In this important volume, the new scramble for Africa is placed in the historical context of imperialism and the contributors show important continuities with the original nineteenth-century scramble. However, while the previous scramble was between major European powers, today the continent provides a battleground for competition between the US, the European Union, China and other emerging players such as India and South Africa.
This book raises significant general questions relating to the nature of emerging global competition between the US and China; the centrality of the struggle for oil and minerals and resulting militarisation; the international battle to capture Africa’s markets; the marginalisation of African capitalism; and the ambiguous benefits that investment and production by multinational companies bring to African communities. Arguing that exploitation of the continent by comprador African elites remains central, the book concludes by raising important questions about the prospects for development in Africa.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Scottsville, South Africa; Uppsala: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press; Nordiska Afrikainstitutet , 2009. , p. 440
Keywords [en]
International economic relations, Foreign investment, Natural resources, Resources exploitation, Geopolitics, Imperialism, Economic dependence
National Category
Economics and Business
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:nai:diva-11ISBN: 9781869141714 (print)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:nai-11DiVA, id: diva2:219817
Note
Published by the UKZN Press with support from the Nordic Africa Institute.
Contents: Introduction: A New Scramble for Africa? / Henning Melber and Roger Southall -- 1. Scrambling for Africa? Continuities and Discontinuities with Formal Imperialism / Roger Southall -- 2. Global Capitalism and the Neo-Liberalisation of Africa / Vishwas Satgar -- 3. Global Trade Regimes and Multi-Polarity: The US and Chinese Scramble for African Resources and Markets / Henning Melber -- 4. Trade Relations between the European Union and Sub-Saharan Africa under the Cotonou Agreement: Repartitioning and Economically Recolonising the Continent? / Margaret C. Lee -- 5. India’s Engagements in Africa: Self-Interest or Mutual Partnership? / Sanusha Naidu -- 6. South Africa in Africa: Still a Formidable Player / John Daniel and Nompumelelo Bhengu -- 7. The Militarisation of the New Scramble in Africa / Martin Rupiya and Roger Southall -- 8. Scrambling for Oil in West Africa? / Cyril I. Obi -- 9. Oil and War in Chad / Simon Massey and Roy May -- 10. The Mining Boom in Sub-Saharan Africa: Continuity, Change and Policy Implications / Wilson Prichard -- 11. Extractive Orders: Transnational Mining Companies in the Nineteenth and Twenty-First Centuries in the Central African Copperbelt / Jana Hönke -- 12. The Scramble for Genetic Resources / Carol Thompson -- 13. The European Union and the International Scramble for African Fish / André Standing -- 14. The Scramble for Africa and the Marginalisation of African Capitalism / Roger Southall and Alex Comninos -- 15. International Competition, Public Contracts and Foreign Business Bribery in Africa: The Case of Uganda / Roger Tangri -- 16. Conclusion: Towards a Response / Roger Southall and Henning Melber
2009-05-282009-05-262023-07-12Bibliographically approved