South Africa and Pakistan: countries brought to their knees by elite capture and economic paralysis

IN THE ongoing quest to understand South Africas political and economic stagnation, it may be helpful to look at other postcolonial states that have travelled further along the path of independence.

- BUSANI NGCAWENI

This may help clarify the stagnation question that citizens, politicians and economists are grappling with.

Much of the analysis of postcolonial Africa and Asia has identified poor leadership, authoritarianism and misguided economic policies as determinants of stagnation. These factors do matter. But they do not fully explain why some new independent states collapsed into dysfunction while others achieved growth. The deeper question is how institutions are built, sustained or destroyed.

South Africa’s stagnation is not the complete absence of growth or democracy, but the inability to convert political freedom and economic potential into sustainable and inclusive growth manifesting in quality of life for the majority. The World Bank calls this an incomplete transition.

In its 30 years of democracy review report, the South African Presidency concluded that the economy was performing below its full potential, unemployment was high, poverty levels were persistent in pockets of broader society, and inequality levels were stubbornly high and racially biased.

As we read in the World Bank’s Africa’s Pulse report, these challenges continue to trouble most of the countries on the continent. I have encountered this in my economic governance capacity building work in government and through my affiliations with local and Asian universities. There is common concern about deteriorating statecraft and the weakening of institutions. In that connection, this essay is framed as a comparative reflection. It situates Pakistan alongside Ghana, Malaysia and Singapore, then turns to former Pakistani civil servant and now academic Ishrat Husain’s book, Governing the Ungovernable. It is a detailed case study of institutional decline.