Like African polities, African economies are in a moment of potentially profound rupture and reconfiguration: shifts in global trading regimes, the challenges of climate change, the critical demographic transition underway in Africa, and the potential disruptions associated with AI all offer both the possibilities of change for African political economies—and the prospect of significant continuities. In particular, as is widely observed, many African economies have served, since the advent of colonialism, as a source of unprocessed primary products for global markets; this has impacted the capacity of those economies to meaningfully transform the lives of their citizens. Does the present juncture offer the chance to shift these patterns?
This panel examines Africa’s economic elites, asking who holds economic power in Africa and in what way political institutions frame how that power is exercised. More specifically, the panel papers engage with these themes from several vantage points: Who are Africa’s business leaders both currently and historically? What kinds of firms do they head up? What is their relationship to the key political institutions in their society? How is this impacted by gender and other identifications? Do economic and political institutions bolster, challenge, or constrain economic elite power? What bolsters, challenges, or constrains economic elite power? And how, in turn, do economic elites shape industrial and resource development on the continent?
While cognisant of the wider international structures within which African political economies operate, this panel seeks to focus on Africa’s economic elites, their relationship to national or regional political power, and the forms of agency that they enjoy and deploy.
Please submit your abstract to Antoinette Handley (a.handley@utoronto.ca) by September 12.
Political Institutions and Business Elites in Africa: Moving Beyond Natural Resources? (Extended Deadline)
