Given the opportunities as well as pressures of ‘globalisation’ (p. 245) apparent in the middle of the first decade of the new century, ‘Africa’ has become ‘hot’, especially Sino-African relations and prospects. This monograph captures some of that (fleeting?) moment. It constitutes an informed and readable yet already deficient and dated overview. Todd Moss exhibits a welcome balance of idealism, realism and scepticism with occasional flashes of humour. He is at his strongest in Part Two of the book as an analyst in a ‘northern’ development think-tank when describing and dissecting aid, debt, democracy, donors, trade and so on. Based in DC, he's familiar with the ‘Washington Consensus’, even if not with its possible successor from Beijing. Nice, functional features of this paperback include boxes on compelling issues like warlordism (p. 56), child soldiers (p. 63), remittances (p. 237) and the Washington Consensus (p. 108), some telling graphs (e.g. how aid and growth are inversely related (p. 138), and the post-independence economic divergence between Ghana and South Korea (p. 92)); there are also thirty tables and additional readings at the end of each of the dozen substantive chapters. Moss is strongest when listing features of salient debates around the continent like conflicts, data, development multiplicity of actors, health, FDI & ODA, regional organisations and trade.
Conversely, however, there are some regrettable silences, some of which the author admits to (p. 14). I would point in particular to the inattention to the emerging economies – the BRICs (Brazil Russia, India and China) – particularly China, as their demand for African resources led to a boom in a few states in the second half of the first decade of the twenty-first century. Since 2000, at least half of The Economist's fastest growing economies each year have been from the continent. Moss mentions ‘failed’ or ‘weak’ states in Chapter Four, but neither ‘developmental’ states nor informal sectors. Likewise, he overlooks migrations and diasporas on the one hand, and drugs, gangs and guns on the other, including their gender dimensions. He is good on the belated discovery of capitalisms in Africa but neglects the boom in business schools or faith-based organisations (FBOs). Neither Clinton nor Gates Foundations feature, nor do South African franchises like DSTV, MTN and Shoprite. Finally, whilst debating several overlapping issues around ‘Africa’ like conflict, democracy and development, Todd Moss fails to notice its promise of insights for comparative international relations, which review articles in leading journals by Douglas Lemke and William Brown on both sides of the pond highlighted mid decade.
I would hope that an expanded, updated second edition might address such concerns as the continent still attracts and confounds. Moss concludes by readily admitting that, at both analytic and applied levels, ‘we simply do not know how to make Chad more like South Korea’. He goes on to express the hope that ‘rather than a source for pessimism, this uncertainly should be a challenge to the next generation of students, scholars and practitioners … It is incumbent on the next generation of Africans and development specialists to continue pushing the research envelope and experimenting with new innovations’ (p. 243).
