The Politics of One-sided Adjustment in Africa

Politics has been defined variously as organizing for human projects, struggle for power, or about who gets what, when, and how. Organizing for human projects gives politics a broader spectrum involving whatever humans do; the notion of struggle for power narrows the definition to the arena of authority in society; and the notion of who gets what, when, and how links politics to economics ( the production and distribution of wealth) as close allies. The politics of one-sided adjustment in Africa embraces all these three definitions. This writer expresses the view that structural adjustment in Africa does not conform to natural justice, is one-sided, and not primarily concerned with solution to economic problems in Africa, but about organizing for human projects in which decisions about who gets what, when, and how have become the source of power struggle between the Bretton Woods institutions and African leaders. This struggle may be conceived as an attempt by the Bretton Woods institutions to recolonize Africa on behalf of their allies while African leaders strive to resist that new form of colonialism. The allies of the Bretton Woods organizations are the Western governments, international business, the commercial banks of the West, and some neoliberal intellectuals.