ABSTRACT
This chapter on neoliberalism, authoritarianism, and popular resistance in Africa points out that as the 2020s begin and the Covid-19 crisis unfolds, neoliberalism has had forty years of dominance, albeit interrupted by two waves of democratic upsurges, in the early 1990s and in the 2010s. The latter period is what concerns us, because lessons from the first have yet to be learned by those engaged in the recent wave of resistance. One result of earlier struggles (termed “IMF Riots”) against damage caused by the Third World Debt Crisis was an era of “low-intensity democracy,” even in sites of intense, radical struggle like South Africa. Essentially, social movements and opposition parties mobilizing against dictators soon wilted under pressures of class compromise and degenerated into governments that accepted and even endorsed the neoliberal Washington Consensus. After the 1980s and 1990s economic decline, the first decade of the 2000s witnessed an ‘Africa Rising’ era largely of rhetorical optimism, catalyzed by the 2002–2014 global commodity price spike. But there was negligible trickle down of the resulting surpluses. Instead, Africa was soon littered with mega-infrastructure projects financed with debt, increasingly associated with Chinese extraction, construction, and financing firms, some of which became debilitating white elephants. Profound contradictions arose between citizenries and regimes sponsored by either Western interests or Chinese interests, leading to repeated protests during the 2010s. The decade ended with spectacular African uprisings in Algeria and Sudan, dislodging ossified authoritarian leaders (albeit not the structural regimes they led). Other forms of late 2010s resistance that did not result in overthrows but instead adjustments in the ruling bloc did not satisfy protesters, who continued vigorous demonstrations where these were not repressed. It is too early to tell how much more severe matters will become as the Covid-19 crisis unfolds, but aside from early emergency relief in the wealthier African states, in part to quell signs of vigorous protest, the most obvious political process ahead is an amplification of both neoliberal austerity and authoritarianism.
