Thandika Mkandawire is currently Chair and Professor of African Development at the London School of Economics. He was formerly Director of the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, and Director of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA). In 2015, he published an influential critique of neopatrimonialism, “Neopatrimonialism and the Political Economy of Economic Performance in Africa: Critical Reflections.”

[It’s been very difficult to pin down what political scientists, who favour the term, mean when they talk about patrimonialism or neopatrimonialism. As the political scientist Anne Pitcher, anthropologist Mary Moran and political scientist Michael Johnston, in a 2009 article, summarize the political science view as “… to denote systems in which political relationships are mediated through, and maintained by, personal connections between leaders and subjects, or patrons and clients.” – The Editor, AIAC]

Mkandawire’s empirical analysis demonstrates that neopatrimonialism can neither explain heterogeneity in political arrangements nor predict variability in economic outcomes. He argues that its dominance in scholarly and popular discourses of the continent derives from its appeal to crude ethnographic stereotypes. Yet such stereotypes are at odds with the idea that African citizens can be trusted to vote intelligently. As a result, the neopatrimonial school tends to seek political arrangements that can circumnavigate democratic politics, particularly in the form of bureaucratic authoritarianism or external agents of restraint. Against this, Mkandawire insists on an approach that recognizes the importance of democratic politics, and the critical role that ideas, interests and structures play in shaping African societies. The full interview can be read here. Below is an excerpt of the interview which I conducted for the Journal for Contemporary African Studies.