'The book is a must-read for all those interested in understanding the African situation and how progress might be achieved in the future. … this is an excellent study.' Development in Practice

This 2001 book explains why African countries have remained mired in a disastrous economic crisis since the late 1970s. It shows that dynamics internal to African state structures largely explain this failure to overcome economic difficulties rather than external pressures on these same structures as is often argued. Far from being prevented from undertaking reforms by societal interest and pressure groups, clientelism within the state elite, ideological factors and low state capacity have resulted in some limited reform, but much prevarication and manipulation of the reform process, by governments which do not really believe that reform will be effective, which often oppose reforms because they would undercut the patronage and rent-seeking practices which undergird political authority, and which lack the administrative and technical capacity to implement much reform. Over time, state decay has increased.

Introduction
1. Approaches to Africa's permanent crisis
2. Patterns in economic reform implementation, 1979–99
3. Decision making in post-colonial Africa
4. Understanding state responses to the crisis
5. The crisis and foreign aid
6. Democratization and the prospects for change
7. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP], Political science & theory [JPA], Regional studies [GTB]