All of this week’s readings emphasized how initial conditions can drastically shape the pattern a country’s development takes. According to Sachs, Mellinger and Gallup, “regions in the ‘temperate-near’ category constitute a mere 8.4% of the world’s inhabited land area, but they hold 22.8% of the world’s population and produce 52.9% of the world’s GNP.” These statistics almost seem unfair. How can so much economic growth for such a tiny segment of the world population be based on sheer geographic luck? Moreover, how can Westerners in development expect to help Africa grow when so much of their own growth is rooted in lucky geography? By highlighting the fact that factor endowments like geography do play a role in the development process, this week’s articles not only reveal how developed countries were primed for economic growth but how developing countries like those in Africa were disadvantaged geographically from the very start. This difference must be taken into account in development strategies for African countries. The situation in African countries is not the same as the situation in developing countries and it never was. If it had been, the field of “African development” would not even exist.
Herbst reveals more differences between African countries and developed countries by discussing the unique population distributions in many African states. The Western philosophy of bigger is better often fails in Africa precisely because of these population distributions. Many larger African states have population pockets dispersed throughout the countryside, which are hard to unite, and poor infrastructure. Both characteristics make it hard for governments to enforce and maintain power. Herbst also notes that these population pockets are more often than not ethnic clusters, which might explain why many Africans continue to identify by their ethnic tribe before a nationality- a factor which in itself makes it more difficult for a state to exert control. As I was reading Herbst’s article focused on the problems posed by population distributions and the general lack of infrastructure in Africa, I could not help thinking about China and their zealous road-building throughout the African continent in recent years. Herbst describes infrastructure as a “double-edge sword” for larger African countries because it allows capital to flow out while also allowing disgruntled pocket populations to more easily reach the capital. What will the increased number of roads built by China in these larger African nations mean? Will more roads actually help stabilize these states or simply foster more conflict within their borders ultimately further destabilizing them?
Acemoglu, Robinson, and Johnson not only point to Africa’s disease-prone geography as a disadvantage to Africa itself but also as a factor that influenced how colonizers treated colonies in Africa differently. They note that Europeans were more likely to set up extractive institutions and concentrate power in the hands of local elites when colonial environments contained fatal disease threats to Europeans themselves. I think this is an extremely important point. These colonial decisions to not invest in much institutional development undoubtedly shaped the course of African development too. However, this perspective gives the colonizers a more active role in this process. European colonizers might have been influenced by Africa’s geography and the prominence of disease on the continent but their actions and the institutions they set up -not the geography- directly limited Africa’s economic growth too. Thus, Westerners working in development must recognize the differences in geography that have hindered Africa’s development but also the role that Westerners themselves played in limiting Africa’s economic growth during the colonial period.
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