As African countries recover from decades of economic decline, images of the continent in popular discourses reflect growing optimism through such tropes as ‘Africa Rising’ and ‘the African Century’. Within this narrative, Zambia has been seen as a success story of neoliberal capitalism, having managed relatively high economic growth since the early 2000s. This is ...

A common view of the developmental prospects of sub-Saharan Africa is that the crucial obstacle is political. Stronger states and representative institutions are a necessary precondition for development. This is a common view in both the media and in academe. The paper argues that this is to get things the wrong way round. Rather it is development, specifically the...