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Transforming our common future:the local dimensions of global reform
 Fantu Cheru
 American University, Washington, DC
Globalization, a phenomenon brought about by technological revolu-tions, is an increasingly important dimension of international economicrelations in terms of its implications for trade, productive investmentand nance. In both mainstream media and the corporate board rooms,globalization is presented as the only alternative that would bringunprecedented world prosperity and freedom in the post-Cold War era(Barnet and Cavanagh, 1994). Others, on the other hand, characterizeglobalization as the greatest threat to potential human development. Asthe remote forces of globalization hobble governments and weaken the bonds of social solidarity, anger is growing from those whose existenceis being threatened (Mittelman, 1996; Barber, 1992). Despite these diver-gent points of view, the long-term implications of globalization remainunclear. Furthermore, the possibilities of building a strong transnationalcivil society movement to curtail the growth in the structural power ofcapital remain to be seen.Although it is tempting to indulge in an academic exercise ofconstructing scenarios or proposing the creation of special UN agenciesfor specic global reform, the best contribution I can make as an Africanis to highlight the constraints to be overcome and opportunities thatremain to be exploited in African societies for constructing a just andsustainable social order at the local and national levels, and showinghow these local efforts could be used as a stepping stone towards globalreform.For progressive movements in the north, an understanding of theAfrican reality on the ‘ground’ is the rst step towards developing jointprogrammes on issues of common concern that affect the future ofhumanity.
Effective social formations of resistance, redistribution or transfor-mation cannot be theoretically prescribed or academically engineered. Insteadof focusing on a unifying conception of society and transformation, we mustlook for a workable sense of cohesion to emerge out of the seemingly irrecon-cilable modes of resistance waged from below.
Review of International Political Economy 7:2 Summer 2000: 353–368Review of International Political Economy
ISSN 0969-2290 print/ISSN 1466-4526 online © 2000 Taylor & Francis Ltd
 
This article attempts to map out the contours of the ‘pro-globalization’versus ‘resistance to globalization’ debate and present some concretesuggestions on how both northern and southern social movements,through joint actions, can carve out a middle ground aimed at harnessingthe opportunities offered by globalization while at the same time pre-empting its negative consequences. Specically, the article will presentthe appropriate parameters of state–society–market relations required to build a just, egalitarian and democratic global community.
GLOBALIZATION AND NEOLIBERALISM
Globalization and liberalization are depicted as a fast express train tohigher levels of development. With the collapse of communism, the neo-classical liberal economic model has emerged as the dominant model ofthe new global economic order. The proponents of neoliberalism arguethat the debt-ridden countries in Africa and newly emerging countriesof Eastern Europe can pull themselves out of poverty and underdevel-opment by shifting their development paradigm from developmentplanning, with an active and commanding role for the state, to devalu-ation, deregulation, liberalization and privatization – in short, installingmarket fundamentals under the iron discipline of the trinity of theIMF, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization (WTO).And in the process, these countries are expected to replicate the suc-cessful experiences of the newly industrializing countries (NICs) of EastAsia.Since the early 1980s, a large and growing number of developingcountries have embarked (some reluctantly, under duress from the multi-lateral development banks) on the liberalization of their trade and foreigninvestment regimes, as well as the adaptation of their domestic economicstructures and strengthening of their export capacity. Between 1980 and1986 alone, 36 sub-Saharan African countries initiated 241 adjustmentprogrammes. Most have had multiple programmes, with eleven imple-menting ten or more. Two decades later, the role of the state in Africahas been signicantly curtailed, the dominance of market forces is setin place, and economies are wide open to external penetration. In short,globalization and structural adjustment are mutually reinforcing.Needless to say, the initial expectations that structural adjustmentcould bring rapid economic recovery have been unrealistic. Substantialeconomic turnaround has not occurred in any of the countries thatsubmitted to them; living standards for the majority have declined, andinvestment in the productive and social sectors of the economy hasdwindled. The retreat of the state in key areas of the social services hasleft enormous gaps that have at times been lled by local survival initia-tives. Reform has become necessary to satisfy external creditors, and not
REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
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adequately internalized as a domestic requirement for growth (Gibbonand Olukoshi, 1996). This has provoked popular resistance from below.Although developing countries can learn a lot from the NICs’ exper-ience, the recipe pursued by them was entirely different from the ones being prescribed by the apologists of liberalization and deregulation(Smith, 1991). First, the Asian countries developed as an outpost of anAmerican economic and military strategy in the context of the Cold War.While large amounts of capital were provided to these bastions of theCold War, their access to markets in the United States was relativelyfree (Frank, 1991; Broad and Cavanagh, 1988).Furthermore, the Asian ‘Tigers’ never entrusted to the market or toforeign investors the task of deciding which industries should prosperand which ones should fail. Instead, the respective governments deviseddifferent incentives to encourage their infant industries until they carvedout a competitive niche in the world market. In the case of uncompeti-tive industries, programmes were developed to help them diversifyor phase out, and their workers were retrained rather than beingpermanently retrenched. This was followed by land reform, upgradingof infrastructure, developing indigenous technological capacity, andstrengthening domestic demand, consumption and investment (Bello andRosenfeld, 1990; Fishlow
et al.
, 1994). Only once this had been achieveddid they reorient their investments to the export market. As a result,they managed to achieve market-driven economic restructuring withoutincurring high economic and social costs.The experience of Africa, in the context of onerous debt accompanied by disciplinary neoliberalism and economic globalization, has been quitethe opposite. Notwithstanding the adoption of misguided nationalpolicies and mismanagement by local elites, economic adjustment andliberalization have been forced down the throats of African peopleagainst the background of depressed commodity prices, declining foreignassistance, withdrawal of private lending, increased northern protec-tionism, and unsustainable levels of debt (Cheru, 1989; Brown and Tiffen,1992; Mihevc, 1995). As a result, few African countries have achievedcreditably in terms of any of the indicators that measure real, sustain-able development. Instead, most have slid backwards into growinginequality, ecological degradation, deindustrialization and poverty.Adjustment has been achieved by curtailing investment in social servicesand by incurring more debt.As the NICs’ case demonstrates, it is important to recognize that thestate has an important role to play in national development, and thatthe state is not necessarily or inevitably parasitic or corrupt. Indeed, theG7-supported reform process in Africa and the former East Europeancountries actually requires a strengthening of key aspects of the stateapparatus, although the rhetoric of structural adjustment and ‘systemic
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