State Power and Economic Crisis in Senegal

State Power and Economic Crisis in Senegal Author(s): Catherine Boone Source: Comparative Politics, Vol. 22, No. 3 (Apr., 1990), pp. 341-357 Published by: Ph.D. Program in Political Science of the City University of New York Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/421965 Accessed: 08-07-2015 10:33 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Ph.D. Program in Political Science of the City University of New York is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Comparative Politics. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 158.143.192.135 on Wed, 08 Jul 2015 10:33:49 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions State Power and Economic Crisis in Senegal CatherineBoone Sub-SaharanAfrica's currenteconomic crisis calls for a reassessmentof the role of the state in shaping patterns of postcolonial economic development. This reassessment requires a departurefrom the structuraland instrumentalmodels of the state that now dominate the literatureon capitalism in Africa. These models are predicted on the assumptionthat the state in Africa performsfunctions necessary for the reproductionof "structuralfeatures"of neocolonial or dependent capitalist economies. In the face of the pervasive process of economic decay which is a striking feature of Africa's current crisis, this functionalist assumption becomes difficult to sustain. The contours of the current crisis suggest that structuraland instrumentalmodels have directedattentionaway from aspects of state power and its use that play an importantrole in shaping economic structuresin contemporary Africa. This paper focuses on internal political variables long considered to be of marginal relevance in the theoreticalliteratureon the state and economic change in Africa. It argues that postcolonial mechanismsof governanceplay an importantrole in determiningpatterns of continuityand change in Africaneconomies. The argumentis based on an analysis of the economic crisis that emerged in Senegal in the 1980s. The study suggests that development of patronagenetworks in Senegal reorganizedthe institutionalstructureof state power and that this reorganizationeroded the capacity of the Senegalese state to sustain patternsof economic activity established under colonial rule. Since postcolonial mechanisms of governanceobserved in this case are not unique to Senegal, the analysis provides the basis for broaderpropositionsabout the role of internalmechanismsof governancein shaping the contoursof the economic crisis that now affects much of sub-SaharanAfrica. The Departure from "State-as-Actor" Models Underdevelopmenttheory and other studies of capitalism in Africa have produced a vast literature on the role of the state in structuringpatterns of economic development in contemporaryAfrica. One of the many strengthsof this work is its success in demonstrating the extensive impactof the developmentof capitalismand of colonial and postcolonial state power on African economies and social structures.Analysts highlighted the ways in which states facilitate and promote capitalist development, integrate national economies into worldwide systems of productionand exchange, promote the interestsof the social groups that control the state, and ensure the kind of domestic political order that makes this possible. The problem with this work is the assumption that these projects are complementaryand that they can be performedsimultaneously. Analysts concernedprimarilywith patternsof capitalist development in Africa tended to 341 This content downloaded from 158.143.192.135 on Wed, 08 Jul 2015 10:33:49 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ComparativePolitics April 1990 assume that state power would be used to sustain, and perhaps build upon, patterns of economic activity established during the colonial period. Some viewed the state as an "instrument"of social groups that control state power.' They characterizedthe state as the institutionalexpression of an alliance between dominantforeign interests and subordinate local private interests or as an instrumentused to advance goals defined primarilyby a corporatebody of state agents (bureaucraticbourgeoisie, political class). Other analysts of the African state operatedat a higher level of abstraction,seeing the state as a social actor respondingto the structuralimperativesof dependentcapitalism.2Both groups of analysts viewed state power in Africa as a force that worked to guaranteethe political and economic underpinningsof dependentcapitalismor the process of underdevelopment.The interestsof those who control the postcolonial state and the state actions requiredto sustain peripheral capitalismwere assumed to be complementary. In the context of the economic crisis affecting much of Africa, it has become exceedingly difficult to define the state as an effective agent or actor promotingthe general interestsof capital or the corporateinterests of a domestic political class. Many African states are not performingthe basic "function"of sustainingthe conditions necessary for the maintenance of capitalistproduction.Economic infrastructureand basic social services have deteriorated. For foreign corporations,state interventionin economic activity has become unpredictable; for peasants, it has become both unpredictableand predatory. Investment has become exceedingly risky. Industrialproductionis droppingas a result of firm bankruptcies,foreign exchange shortages, transportbottlenecks, and shrinkingdomestic markets. Productionof commercial crops is declining as peasants turn to subsistence agriculture. In the public sector, government personnel have privatized state resources at an impressive rate. The treasurieswhich pay state employees nearbankruptcy.In much of sub-SaharanAfrica, it has become difficult to ensure the survivalof the state as a bureaucraticorganization,let alone to finance government efforts to sustain production in the industrialand export-oriented agriculturalsectors.3 The assumption that state power in Africa will necessarily be used to reproduce established economic structures is clearly untenable. The functionalism embedded in structuralistmodels of the postcolonial state must be abandoned. It is not necessary, however, to recast the issue entirely, as some analysts have in arguing that the reach of the postcolonial state and the scope of its authoritywere too limited and narrow to meet the demands of sustaining established economic structures.4The case study presented here suggests that the ability of the postcolonial state to sustain patternsof economic activity established during the colonial period was compromisedby the domestic political agenda that guided the extension of postcolonial state power. The argumentrests on identifying contradictionsthat emerged as postcolonial regimes were consolidatedwithin the structures of neocolonial economies. In Senegal, as in much of sub-SaharanAfrica, decolonization transformedthe colonial state into a site and means for consolidating a postcolonial regime. The social base of the postcolonial regime was built within the bureaucraticstructuresof the colonial state. The economic prerogativesof the colonial state became political resourcesthatwere strategically distributedby the postcolonial regime to build patronagenetworks. In Senegal, this process reconfiguredthe institutionalstructureof state power. A defining feature of the colonial state-coherence as a centralized, hierarchical,bureaucraticorganization--gave way to a 342 This content downloaded from 158.143.192.135 on Wed, 08 Jul 2015 10:33:49 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CatherineBoone more decentralizedand fragmentedstructureof state power. This process diminished the capacityof the state to sustaineconomic monopolies that were linchpinsof the (neo)colonial economy. In this case, the consolidationof the postcolonial regime contributedto a decline in the capacity of the state to performcritical economic functions.5The analysis presented here suggests that the economic atrophy or "decay" that characterizesSenegal's current economic crisis reflects these changes. The political consolidation of postcolonial regimes, like all changes viewed as "endogenous" to the political process, has long been regardedby political economists as having little relevance to explanations about continuity and change in broad economic structures.This case study challenges that view. Mechanisms and processes of governance that are not unique to Senegal may be shaping economic structuresin postcolonial Africa in unanticipatedand unintendedways, transformingneocolonial economies in ways that defy "the logic of dependentcapitalism." Mechanisms of Governance and Economic Change in Senegal Mountingexternaldebt service paymentsand Saheliandroughtcreatednecessary but hardly sufficient conditions for the emergence of generalized and profound economic crisis in Senegal in the 1980s. State revenues from Senegal's groundnutexport sector continued to dwindle in the mid 1980s even as agriculturalproductionrecovered from the drought. The privatelyowned import-substitutionindustrialsector plunged into crisis in the late 1970s and stayed there, even as the level of protectivetariffbarriersand state subsidies reachedall-time highs. The government has been unable to emerge from insolvency even as it cuts expenditures and financial commitments under the pressure of its external creditors. Government debts suffocate the public and private financial sectors, leading to credit contraction and deepening of the economic recession.6 Conjuncturaleconomic factors explain the timing of this crisis, but not its scope, depth, or persistence. Explaining the natureand scope of the currentcrisis requiresan analysis of the changing role of the state in structuringeconomic activity in Senegal. The analysis presentedhere views these changes througha study of patternsof state interventionin Senegal's internalmarkets.7 The case study is presented in three parts. The first section focuses on the colonial administrationof French West Africa. It emphasizes the state's role in creating and maintaining monopolistic markets which ensured the profitability of agricultural and industrialproductionin colonial Senegal. The second partfocuses on the political bases and economic policies of the postcolonialregime. Underthe leadershipof Leopold Senghor, the regime was consolidatedthrougha process of selective repressionand the development of extensive patronage networks. Meanwhile, Senegal pursued an economic development strategybased on a commitmentto "continuity"with the colonial period. The viability of Senegal's neocolonial economy was predicated on the maintenance of the monopolies establishedunder colonial rule. The third section shows how the consolidationof a regime based on patronagenetworks transformedthe institutionalstructureof state power. This process eroded the state's capacity to sustain the monopolies underpinningthe neocolonial economy. The changes were evident by the late 1970s, when the Senegalese government proved increasingly unable to encourage export-oriented agricultural production, to 343 This content downloaded from 158.143.192.135 on Wed, 08 Jul 2015 10:33:49 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ComparativePolitics April 1990 appropriateresources from the rural sector, and to enforce the protectionisttrade policies which ensuredthe profitabilityof the industrialsector. Colonial State and Economy The colonial state, not "the invisible hand of the market," defined the system of economic incentives and pressuresthat gave rise to the industrialand agriculturalsectors thatconstitutethe core of the Senegalese economy. This fact is centralto explainingthe course of economic change after independence.Not only the structureof this governing institution, but also the economic role it performedproved to be specific to the colonial situation. The colonial state was a highly centralizedcorporateentity that was autonomousvis-a-vis broad-based and particularisticinterests arising within Senegalese society. The colonial bureaucracywas an administrativeand military branchof the French state. At the level of broadpolicy, it was controlledfrom Paris througha hierarchicalchain of commandstaffed by professional civil servants and military officers. Broad colonial policy was fashioned within the French national bureaucracyand the Assembl6e Nationale. At both sites, the rather narrow segments of French industry and commerce interested in West Africa exercised a degree of influence over colonial economic policy disproportionateto their importance within the French political system at large.8 At the level of policy implementation, colonial state power was deployed within narrow parametersset from above. Where the colonial administrationenjoyed room for maneuver and discretion in economic policy implementation,decisions were shapedby a constellationof privateFrench and bureaucraticinterestsoperatingat both the metropolitanand local levels. The relationshipbetween colonial state power and the colonial economy was decidedly nonliberal.Fromthe impositionof direct colonial rule in the 1890s onward, state power was used to insulate uncompetitive French trading and manufacturinginterests active in the Africancolonies from the pressuresof internationaland local marketforces. Franceimposed an economic regime of imperial preference on its West African territoriesand devised a complex regulatoryapparatusgoverningtrade, investment, and monetaryflows that molded the French empire into an autarchicbloc. French West Africa was a chasse guardce for France, a nationalmonopoly to be exploited by private French interests. Within the autarchicbloc, colonial economic policy promotedwhat the Frenchdefined as "complementary"forms of productionand exchange. State power was used to ensure that the economic development of the colonies and the private economic activities of Africans did not pose a competitive threat to metropolitaninterests. In French West Africa, the colonial administrationdirectlycontrolledprivateaccess to land, credit, urbanproperty,and trading opportunitiesat virtually all stages of the commercial circuit. It imposed a strict system of importlicensing based on productcategories, and it licensed individualtradersto operate in market niches defined by the regime. Investment in industry was controlled throughyet anotherlicensing regime. The colonial administrationfixed prices on internal markets for consumer goods and agriculturalcommodities, created and enforced crop purchasingoligopolies, and grantedand enforced private monopolies over importationand the distribution of consumer goods. Manipulation of these controls undermined the precolonial Senegalese trading class and ensured the uncontested dominance of French tradingand industrialinterests.9 344 This content downloaded from 158.143.192.135 on Wed, 08 Jul 2015 10:33:49 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CatherineBoone The economic system that developed undercolonial rule was the productof pressuresand incentives created by state manipulationof markets, state control over access to land, and state control of investmentopportunities.Its defining structureswere peasant export crop production, oligopolistic control of the import-exporttrade by a handful of huge French tradingcombines, and, by the 1950s, a French-ownedimport-substitutionindustrialsector. Taxationof the import-exporttradefinancedthe colonial administrationand its investments in economic infrastructure(for example, railways, the port of Dakar).'0 Productionof groundnutsfor export was the core of the colonial economy and of the rural social orderforged underdirect colonial rule. Exportcrop productionwas organizedaround a new group of Islamic leaders, the marabouts, who established a governing alliance and economic partnershipwith the colonial state." The administrationgranted the most importantmaraboutsvast tracksof land along railways, credit, and farmingequipment.The Islamic leaders establishedgroundnutestates of their own and allocated land for groundnut cultivationto their followers. Extensive state regulationof ruralcommercialcircuits assured a handful of French tradingcombines oligopolistic control over the purchaseof the export crop and near-exclusive control over the sale of basic manufacturedgoods (textiles, hardware) and imported foodstuffs (rice, sugar, tomato paste) in groundnut producing areas.12This structureof control over tradeproducedan integratedand oligopolistic trading circuit. State regulation of internal markets restricted competition at the level of crop purchasesand at the level of consumer goods sales. Chronic indebtednessto ruraltrading posts tied peasantsto groundnutproductionand to the French commercialhouses. Through tariffs, commercial licensing, and import bans, the colonial state captured FrenchWest African marketsfor uncompetitiveFrenchexportersof manufacturedgoods.13 When the colonial governmentbegan to encourageFrenchinvestmentin light industryin the FrenchWest African colonies in the 1950s, it underwrotethe viability of new textile, food processing, and household goods industries by granting production monopolies.14 The high-cost local manufacturerswere sheltered from international competition by newly fortified tariff barriersand franc zone monetarycontrols. The profitabilityof light industry in Dakarwas predicatedon the use of state power to minimize the competitive pressuresof internationaland local markets. Under direct colonial rule, French and Lebanese immigrants moved into the service sector, small-scale business, retail trade, and urban transport.As avenues for indigenous capital accumulation in the private sector narrowed, relatively privileged elements of Senegalese society sought advancement within the municipal political structures of Senegal's quatres communes and the low ranks of the colonial civil service. The politicobureaucraticstratacreated within the French administrationand the rural religious elite emerged as dominant forces in internal political struggles set in motion by decolonization. Political Consolidation within the Constraints of "Economic Continuity" Neocolonial economic constraintswere institutionalizedin Senegal's decolonization arrangementswith France. The independencethat France grantedto Senegal perpetuatedFrench control over Senegal's monetary policy, preserved French exporters' privileged access to Senegalese markets, and guaranteed that existing French investments in industry would not be 345 This content downloaded from 158.143.192.135 on Wed, 08 Jul 2015 10:33:49 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ComparativePolitics April 1990 threatenedby the transitionto self-rule. The decolonizationarrangementwas constructedto ensure "economic continuityand close ties with France."'"This meant that there would be no state-engineeredrestructuringof the economy that would compromiseFrenchinterests. L6opold Senghor, a skilful politician committed politically and ideologically to "economic continuity," became president of Senegal at the time of independence. The electoral victories of Senghor and the Union Progressiste Sinegalaise (UPS), the postindependence ruling party, reflected France's efforts to ensure a conservative decolonizationarrangementand the strengthof the Senegalese religious elite. In the electoral contests of the 1950s, the colonial administrationused its juridical and coercive powers to fragment, marginalize, and demobilize political movements calling for restructuringof the colonial economy.'6 Meanwhile, the most powerful marabouts delivered rural electoral supportfor Senghor with the understandingthat their political and economic hold on the ruralareas would not be challenged. The consolidation of the Senghor regime in the 1960s involved the development of strategiesof political controldesigned to guaranteethe position of Senghor, unify and ensure the hegemony of the UPS, institutionalizethe conservative economic agenda by silencing radicalsand reformers,and provide some basis for legitimizing the system. In the immediate postcolonial period, repression narrowedthe scope of political participationand debate, defining the parametersof the political arena." Within this arena, the neocolonial situation shapedthe strategiesthatwere employed to entrenchand legitimize the positions of Senghor and the UPS. The commitmentto economic continuityruled out a range of strategicoptions for mobilizing political support. It meant that there would be no appeal to broad-based constituencies with a stake in economic reforms such as "indigenization"of the modem sector or land reform. At the same time, however, the neocolonial situation offered resources and opportunitiesthat were used to fortify the regime and shore up the political status quo. The system of economic dirigisme set in place undercolonial rule ensuredthe new regime not only a financial base, but also a great deal of discretionarycontrol over access to resourcesand opportunitiesin the domestic economy. The revenue base of the postcolonial state was constituted through the system of import-exporttaxation inherited from the colonial administration.It was augmented by loans, grants, technical assistance, and military support from the French government. The Senghor regime also inherited the extensive arrayof regulatorymechanismsthat allowed the state to manipulatecompetitive forces on domestic markets. These arrangementsoffered immediate political advantages. The neocolonial situation enabled the regime to spend, hire, and allocate rents generated throughstate interventionin marketsin ways that, as RobertBates says, could "enhanceits ability to remain in power."18 In postcolonial Senegal, state resources and rents were distributed on the basis of political patronage. The strategic use of patronage created clientelistic structuresof political control. Clientelism, coupled with the threatof repression, was a mechanismof exclusion, cooptation, and political manipulationthatbecame a primary means for consolidatingthe Senghor regime. Observers of Senegalese politics over the course of the last fifteen years provide a remarkablyconsistent portraitof how this process worked.19Through the mechanism of clientelism, the Senghor regime was consolidatedas a networkof patronage-basedpolitical factions. Factionscoalesced aroundSenghorloyalists ensconced in positions of bureaucratic 346 This content downloaded from 158.143.192.135 on Wed, 08 Jul 2015 10:33:49 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CatherineBoone and political power: party barons, labor leaders, political appointees, high-ranking bureaucrats,governmentministers, the managersof parastatalcompanies, and local level UPS operatives. These subcomponentsof the larger party-administrativepolitical machine were organizedpyramidicallyalong the lines of patron-clientrelationships.Votes, political support and acquiescence, and kickbacks were exchanged for administrativefavors and access to the economic resources controlled by those holding the levers of bureaucratic power. The strategic allocation of government jobs coopted restive intellectuals and professionalsand incorporatedthem into political factions anchoredin the state bureaucracy. Factions based within the party/stateapparatusreached outside the bureaucracy,extending clientelistic networksdownwardinto the urbansupportbase and electoral constituenciesof the UPS. Rank-and-filesupportersof the UPS were tied into the sprawlingpolitical machine through the trickling-down of government expenditures and bureaucraticfavors. The structureextended to the rural areas via the most importantmarabouts, who mediated the flow of governmentresourcesto the ruralworld and continuedto deliver at least half of all votes the UPS received at election time.20 The political structurewhich emerged was an amalgamof "spoils-orientedfactions" that were based in regionally and functionally defined divisions of the ruling party, various branchesof the bureaucracy,and the ruralreligious organizations.The centraltask of the top political leadership, especially Senghor, was to manipulate factional rivalries to check challenges to the presidenthimself and to close off all possibilities for maneuveroutside the structuresof the governmentand the party. Within these structures,patrons positioned at various levels of the factional pyramids enjoyed a degree of discretion over the use of bureaucraticpower that was roughly proportional to their standing in the hierarchy, contingent on loyalty to the more powerful patrons about them. A loose form of political control was achieved throughthe dual mechanismof exclusion and cooptation. Particularismand clientelism within the frameworkof the one-party state blocked the organization of interests outside the corporatist institutions set up by the government. Resources trickleddown throughpatron-clientchannels, undercuttingbroad-basedpolitical demands while controlling access to state resources.2"Jobs, contracts, business licenses, loans, schooling opportunities,exemptionsfrom taxation, and the like were distributedon a particularisticbasis to government employees, state agents, and their constituents and clients. The process welded clients of the state into a de facto supportbase for the regime and provided the state with some claim to legitimacy. As a strategyfor political consolidation,clientelism was particularlyopportunebecause it could be pursued within the structures of the (neo)colonial economy. The circle of beneficiaries of the economic status quo could be widened without compromising vested interests. The commitmentto these vested interests was manifest in the Senghor regime's concertedefforts to sustaincolonial patternsof economic productionand growth. In the case of Senegal, decolonization did not come when the reproductionof colonial economic structurescould be assuredby primarilyeconomic (that is, market)forces. The viability of economic structures created under colonialism remained dependent on maintenance of colonial patternsof state interventionin markets. The government encouraged the import-substitutionindustrializationprocess initiated during the last decade of colonial rule. Industrializationwas based, as before, on direct foreign investment. Productionmonopolies granted by the colonial administrationin the 347 This content downloaded from 158.143.192.135 on Wed, 08 Jul 2015 10:33:49 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ComparativePolitics April 1990 1950s were renewed, and new monopolies were reserved for foreign investors.22 Protectionisttrade barriersestablished under colonialism were reinforced. The growth and profitabilityof domestic industrycontinued to depend on the use of state power to restrict competitionon the internalmarket.In the agriculturalsector, the maraboutsretainedcontrol over the organizationof groundnutproduction.As critics of neocolonialismin Senegal have shown, the economic policies of the Senghor government were designed to preserve the structureof control over industrialand agriculturalproductionthat was established during the colonial period.23 Meanwhile, the postcolonialgovernmentparlayedtransitionsunderwayin the commercial sector into domestic political capital. The scope of the Frenchtradingcombines' commercial activities began to contract in the 1950s as the profitabilityof the internationalgroundnut tradebegan to decline. The companiesmoved to consolidate theirimport-exportactivities at the wholesale level. In 1960, the governmentof Senegal acceleratedthis process by placing the exportof groundnutsunderstate monopoly. Monopoly over the groundnuttradegave the state direct control over export revenues and strengthenedits internalrevenue base. The state monopoly placed the domestic side of the groundnutmarketingcircuit under direct or indirect control of the government bureaucracy.In the 1960s, individuals were licensed by the governmentto fill commercialniches at all levels of the groundnuttrading circuit. Senegalese traders, along with politicians, bureaucrats, and other would-be entrepreneursreceived licenses and state-financedcredit. They became private businessmen operating on their own account in the state-managedcommercial sector. In effect, the reorganization of the groundnut trade created politically mediated avenues of private accumulationthat were allocated within the frameworkof patronagenetworksto clients and agents of the regime.24The commercial licensing system and the political ends it served conform to Bates' model of "divisible benefits" allocated throughpolitical channels. State agents exercised discretion over the allocation of trading opportunities and selectively bestowed benefits on themselves and on the faithful.25 The state-controlledcommercial sector became the primary avenue for local private accumulation in Senegal's neocolonial economy. The only important exception was large-scale groundnut production, which remained the province of the most important marabouts. The state-controlledreorganizationof trade allowed for the dramaticexpansion of the domestic accumulating"class." This group was composed of clients of the state who collected politically generatedrents: bureaucrats,politicians, UPS bigwigs and operatives, and their relatives and clients. As a social group, it had no economic base that offered autonomy from direct state control: it was tied to the discretionary and particularistic exercise of state power. The expansionof the accumulatingclass promotedthe consolidation of the regime and fortified its social base. As the 1960s drew to a close, the economic strains and political limits of strategies pursued during the first decade of independence became increasingly apparent. As the growth of the economy and of the state bureaucracyslowed, laborunions, students, and the growing local business community began to criticize economic policies that served French firms at the expense of national interests. Meanwhile, increasingly powerful political factions within the regime began to resist what was viewed as excessive centralizationof power at the top level of government. In 1968, smoulderingdissatisfactionwith the status quo eruptedinto a political crisis which shook the foundationsof the Senghor regime.26 348 This content downloaded from 158.143.192.135 on Wed, 08 Jul 2015 10:33:49 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CatherineBoone The Senghorian political system survived the political crisis of 1968-1970 through a liberal dose of the political formula worked out over the course of the first decade of independence: repression plus cooptation. Once the streets were cleared, the serious challenge to the regime was managed by increasing the autonomy, bureaucratic prerogatives, and state resources at the disposal of powerful faction leaders within the government. Powers that had been centralized in the president's office were shifted to various branchesof the bureaucracy.Foreign borrowingenhancedthe distributivecapacity of the state, and the resources under the discretionary control of various government agencies (banks, public works, urban transport,parastatals,rural development agencies) increased. "Senegalization" of administrative posts at all levels created jobs that incorporated a new generation of graduates into the political machine. Government expenditures benefiting target groups grew, and there was a dramatic expansion of politically mediated opportunities for local private accumulation, especially in the commercialsector.27The effect of these changes was the accommodationof a broaderrange of privateinterests,contingenton acquiescencein the political statusquo, withoutreforming basic economic structures. The clientelistic structure of internal political control was broadenedand reinforced. The relative stabilityand longevity of the Senghorregime is testimonyto the effectiveness of clientelistic structuresof political control in Senegal, at least duringthe first two decades of independence. This system of governance, however, had important and unintended consequencesfor an economic system built upon patternsof marketcompetitionestablished duringthe colonial period. Fragmentation of the State, Decay of the Neocolonial Economy In the short run at least, the expansion of clientelistic networks increased the capacity of the political system for political accommodation,incorporation,and social control. The regime broadened its social base in an ad hoc way as the political machine grew. The dispersion of power and prerogativewithin the state apparatusfacilitated cooptationbecause the state became more responsive to particularisticdemands. Incrementally,this process redefinedthe institutionalstructureof state power in Senegal. The centralized structure of the colonial administrationgave way to a structure of bureaucraticcontrol fragmentedalong the lines of vertically integratedpolitical factions. Power within the state apparatuswas dispersed;control over state prerogativeand authority gravitatedto increasingly autonomous political factions.28 Subunits of the state such as parastatalenterprises and government agencies gravitated outside the scope of central control as they were capturedby powerful factions. The most notorious example is that of ONCAD, the state agency responsible for the collection and export of groundnuts.29In the 1970s, ONCAD became a vast and uncontrollablepatronagecombine, a political machine unto itself run by and for its 5,000 employees and theirclients in "the quasi-totalabsence of internalauditing,financialcontrol, and effective governmentoversight."30On a less spectacularscale, similarprocesses were at work in the National Development Bank, the ministry of rural development, and the ministryof commerce. Factions comprisedof those runningthese agencies grew in political autonomyand strengthat the expense of the agencies' effectiveness in implementingtheir 349 This content downloaded from 158.143.192.135 on Wed, 08 Jul 2015 10:33:49 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ComparativePolitics April 1990 formal mandates and official government directives. The coherence of the state as an administrativeandbureaucraticorganization,predicatedon a hierarchicalpower structureand manifest in the coordinatedaction of subunits, diminished. As these features of state power eroded, so too did the ability of the state to sustain neocolonial economic structures. The colonial economy was built on state-enforced monopolies that made colonial industryprofitableand allowed Frenchimport-exporthouses (and the colonial administration)to extract surpluses from the rural sector. A myriad of bureaucratictools was used to manipulate and constrain the competitive forces of the colonial market.The Senghorregime assumedcontrol of these bureaucratictools for market manipulationand took on the task of sustaining the restrictive pattern of market activity established during the colonial period. At the same time, bureaucraticdiscretion over who could buy and sell what, when, and where representedpatronageresourceswhich were used as a means of political consolidation.Rents generatedby state manipulationof marketswere deployed to fortify an ever-expanding network of political factions linked to the state throughties of clientelism. As state prerogativegravitatedtowardincreasinglyautonomous, spoils-based factions, the coordinatedand restrictivesystem of marketcontrol deteriorated. The result was decay of the neocolonial groundnuteconomy and industrialsector. In the rural sector, the rise of parallel marketingcircuits undercutthe state's position as monopsony buyer and divertedruraltrade away from the Dakar import-exportcircuit.31' In the 1970s, groundnutsdestined for export and importedgoods headed for Senegal's rural areas passed illegally in growing volumes through the Gambia, escaping regulation and taxationby the Senegalese government.The most importantmaraboutsnot only engaged in parallel marketsthemselves (some even financing it at the wholesale level), but also used their clout to insulate ruralparallel marketsfrom effective governmentinterference.32The dramaticrise of parallelmarketsallowed peasantsto defaulton debts to the governmentthat were normallycollected by the official groundnutmarketingboard. Turningtheir backs on these debts loosened the bonds that tied the peasantsto groundnutproduction.Many began to devote more of their resources to production for family consumption and barter. In contrast with past practice, the government made no sustained effort to reimpose state control over ruraltradeflows after the mid 1970s. By 1980, an estimated65 percent of the total groundnutharvest was sold illegally in the Gambia.33The reverse flow of illegally importedmanufacturedgoods supplied ruralconsumers. The ruraleconomy had gravitated outside the scope of government regulation. The primary source of state revenue-the groundnuttrade-slipped away from state control. These changes in the organizationof the ruraleconomy reflected a shift in the locus of power and prerogativewithin the authoritystructuresof the state. Over the course of the 1960s and 1970s, the regime's most importantclients, the marabouts, had become more autonomous vis-a-vis the central government, gradually emerging as a parallel authority structurein the ruralareas ratherthan one integratedinto a centralizedhierarchycontrolled from Dakar.34 Paradoxically, this change grew out of the process of cooptation via clientelism itself. Both the colonial administrationand the Senghorregime had coopted the most importantmaraboutsand relied on them as the government'sruralagents. Both before and afterindependence,the centralgovernmenthad accommodatedthe marabouts'demands for direct control of the peasantryand for resources to enhance their personalwealth. This governing strategy so enhanced the political and economic power of the rural elite that 350 This content downloaded from 158.143.192.135 on Wed, 08 Jul 2015 10:33:49 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CatherineBoone ultimately the grands marabouts were able to distance themselves from their one-time patrons. Clientelism graduallytransformedthe institutionalstructureof power in the rural areas, strengtheningthe rural elite and their ties to the peasantry at the expense of the Dakar-centeredpolitical system. Meanwhile, changes in the structureof bureaucraticpower within the state apparatus began to transformthe Dakar-centeredimport trade and, as a consequence, the industrial sector. On paper, Senegalese importpolicy in the 1970s was virtuallyidenticalto the highly restrictive colonial trade regime. In fact, however, inexpensive foreign manufactured goods-textiles, shoes, clothing, enamelware, cosmetics-began to flood the urbanmarket in the mid 1970s. Governmentmarket surveys indicated that 60-70 percent of all textile goods sold on the Senegalese marketin early 1980s were importedillegally.35Meanwhile, no state agency made a concerted effort to crack down on smuggling and fraudulent importation.Long-protected,high-cost domestic industriescould not withstandcompetition from these imports. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, bankruptcies,firm closures, and lay-offs swept throughthe industrialsector.36 The breakdownof the importcontrol system reflectedchanges in the locus of control over bureaucraticpower. Over the course of the 1960s and 1970s, the rents generatedby state manipulationof the import trade became resources for consolidatingever larger and more powerful political factions.37In the 1970s, these factions operatedincreasinglyoutside the scope of central administrativecontrol. Importlicenses, governmentimport contracts, and state-financedcommercial credits proliferatedin the 1970s as powerful networks of state agents and their clients capitalized on lucrative opportunitiesfor legal and, increasingly, "quasi-fraudulent"importation.38Prominent personalities made fortunes circumventing importantbans, taxes, and quotas. Less importantclients of the regime were able to engage in the same practiceson a smaller scale. The highly restrictivesystem of importcontrol that ensuredthe profitabilityof the industrialsector was undermined. Basic structuresof the (neo)colonial economy decayed in the later 1970s and 1980s because (neo)colonial patterns of state regulation of markets eroded. Over time, the developmentof a system of regime consolidationand governance that relied on cooptation and clientelism diminished the capacity of the state to restrict access to the tradingcircuit and to structure trade from above. Restrictive control over markets became nearly impossible to sustain in the late 1970s for institutionaland political reasons. Institutionally, market restrictions were difficult to coordinate and sustain because the state agents responsible for enforcing import controls (for example, customs agents, ministry of commerce officials) were themselves involved in activities that breached formal trade policy. Politically, those most concernedaboutthe revenuebase of the state and the survival of Dakar's industrialsector (such as the president,presumably)were hostage to the political factions which constitutedtheir social bases of support.Clientelistic networksbuilt through the distributionof politically generated rents, including those rooted in the illegal and quasi-legalimporttrade, were importantcomponentsof the regime itself and its social base. The strengthand autonomyof these factions increasedover time, reducingthe asymmetryof power that makes patron-clientrelationsan effective mechanismof direct and hierarchically structuredpolitical control. When patterns of state control over market activity that had been established under colonial rule broke down in the 1970s, so too did basic structuresof the (neo)colonial 351 This content downloaded from 158.143.192.135 on Wed, 08 Jul 2015 10:33:49 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ComparativePolitics April 1990 economy. Senegal's current economic crisis is characterizedby the "decay" of these (neo)colonial structures:the internalrevenuebase of the state constitutedthroughtaxationof the import-exporttrade, peasant productionof export crops, and the import-substitution industrialsector. Conclusions Senegal's currenteconomic crisis is linked to the weakening of the state as a bureaucratic organizationand as an administrativeapparatus.The postcolonial system of governance fostered the rise of powerful political factions organized along the lines of particularistic, rent-seeking interests. State power was institutionalized in these informal structures of political control and administration.While reorganizationof control over state power promoted regime consolidation and political control in the 1960s and 1970s, it also paralyzed the state as a corporate actor and undercutthe effectiveness of programmatic economic initiatives. Analysis of the emergence of economic crisis in Senegal suggests that changes in state forms and functions that evolved in the neocolonial context may have been inherently contradictory,reconfiguringstate power in a way that worked to block structuralchange in the economy while reducing the capacity of the state to ensure the reproductionof existing neocolonial economic structures.The contradictionsarise out of the basic parametersof the neocolonial context typical of much of postcolonial Africa. In the neocolonial context, changes in the internalorganizationof state power resulted from efforts to consolidate an amorphousruling coalition into a "political class" and from the efforts of this group to institutionalizeand reproduceits political control and hegemony. Because the dominationof the "politicalclass" was neitherderived from nor reproducedby a structureof social relations forged outside the arena of the state itself, its political hold dependedon the ad hoc impositionof dominationthroughthe continualmanipulationof the concrete prerogativesof the state. State coercion defined the limits of the political arena. Throughthe mechanics of patronage,political control was reassertedand recreatedat each point of access to the extensive arrayof resourcescontrolledby the state. Dominanceand a fragile form of legitimacy were generatedin an ad hoc way. These very arrangementscompromise the ability of the state to perform economic functions which sustain neocolonial patterns of capitalist (under)development. The emergence of clientelistic structuresof political control erodes the capacity of the state to accumulateeconomic surpluses, invest, and organize internalmarketsin ways that sustain existing forms of production. As existing economic structuresdeteriorate,it becomes clear thatthe capacityof African states organizedalong clientelistic lines to transcendneocolonial economic arrangementsis also severely limited. The administrativeinfrastructureneeded for successful implementationof policies aimed at economic reconstructiondoes not exist. Clientelism and neocolonial economic policies blocked the rise of social classes that might have providedpolitical impetus for such initiatives. Systems of political control based on clientelism and state patronage are themselves weakened by the dynamics of this process. Strong patronagenetworks rooted in the state apparatuscan exist only when the state controlsresourcesand economic opportunitieswhich 352 This content downloaded from 158.143.192.135 on Wed, 08 Jul 2015 10:33:49 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CatherineBoone can be allocated to clients. In the context of economic crisis, diminishing state revenues limit the distributivecapacities of regimes. The continuous expansion of parallel markets eventually bringsabout a de facto deregulationof trade. As smugglerscompete for markets, rents once createdby state restrictionof competitionare reduced and ultimatelyeliminated. In the long run, then, the system's capacity to generate patronageresources is exhausted. Meanwhile, for those outside the regime's circle of privileged clients, economic crisis and pervasivecorruptionerode the legitimacy of the state, both as a promoterof "development" and as an authoritativeforce structuringpolitical competition. The economic crisis reflects and exacerbatesthe weaknesses of the state. This study highlights problems inherentin "state as actor" models of African political economy. "The state" is not forced by structuralimperativesto reproducethe conditionsthat sustaindependentcapitalism.A state thatfunctionsin this way is controlledby a regime and social groups willing and able to do so. Similarly, the state may serve as an agent or "instrument"promotingthe interestsof a dominantsocial group or a coalition of capitalist interests, but this is not necessarily so. The defining feature of the instrumentalview is not the claim that dominantgroups use state power to promoteparticularisticinterests, because this happens in all settings at all times. The instrumentalview is distinctive because it assumes that the dominant group also uses state power to promote its corporateinterests (which include reproducingconditions that sustain dependentcapitalism) and to reproduce itself as a socially dominantstratumand that this pursuitreinforcesthe corporatecoherence of the group and its hold on the state. In the Senegalese case, this model does not hold, because state agents' exercise of political power has weakened and fragmentedthe state, the source of their power, and thereforeeroded the ability of this group to reproduceitself as a dominantstratum. Structuraland instrumentalviews generate hypotheses about how state power is used in Africa. These hypotheses prove inadequateto explain the course of political and economic change in cases of profoundeconomic crisis such as one finds in Senegal. In these settings, state power is clearly not working to reproducestructuralfeatures of the African economy, and the reproductionof the state itself is not assured. The issue that structuralistsand instrumentalistsaddress, however, remains valid and central to the analysis of African political economy. How do economic and emergentclass structuresconditionthe exercise of political power in postcolonial Africa?This issue can not be pursuedwithin the framework of state-society models that ignore the social underpinningsof state power and the interests of the social stratathat use state power to their own advantage. This paper presents an argumentabout the implicationsof a system of political control based on clientelism for Africaneconomies predicatedon colonial forms of state dirigisme. The clientelistic structuresof political control that emerge in the neocolonial setting can work to fracturethe state as a bureaucraticorganizationand as a "social actor." These changes can undermine the capacity of the state to function in ways that reproduce neocolonialeconomic structures.The weakness of the state proves to be more than a residual variable in the analysis of African political economy, more than a simply indicator of dependency and neocolonialism. The Senegalese case suggests that the weakening of the state is one reflectionof patternedstruggles for power, control, and advantagethat emerged in the postcolonial period. The struggles themselves are working to reshape African economies. The contoursof the currentcrisis reflect this process. 353 This content downloaded from 158.143.192.135 on Wed, 08 Jul 2015 10:33:49 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ComparativePolitics April 1990 NOTES An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1988 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, September1-4, 1988. Commentson an earlierdraftoffered by Paul Cammack,RobertVitalis, Crawford Young, and Peter Trubowitzimprovedthe paper. 1. The instrumentalview of the African state differs from the classical instrumentalmodel of state power. In the classical model, the state is the tool of a national capitalist class. The "instrumental"models of the African state referredto here take accountof the fact that the postcolonial African state is not an outgrowthof, nor is controlledby, a dominantAfrican capitalist class. The task of the "instrumentalists"analyzing the African state is to define who, precisely, controls the state apparatus.Patternsin the exercise of state power are explained in terms of the corporate interestsof this group. For an analysis of the alliance of Africanstate managers,local capitalists, and foreign capitalists which was institutionalizedin the postcolonial Kenyan state, see Colin Leys, Underdevelopmentin Kenya (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975). Leys later argued that the balance of power began to shift in favor of local capital at the expense of foreign interests. In this, he followed the work of Nicola Swainson, The Rise of Corporate Capitalism in Kenya (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1980), and other analysts of Kenyan capitalism. For furtherdiscussions of the "class" interests, consciousness, and objective class position of African state managers, see Issa Shivji, Class Struggles in Tanzania(New York: Monthly Review Press, 1976); Richard Sklar, "The Nature of Class Domination in Africa," The Journal of Modern African Studies, 17 (1979); Irving Leonard Markovitz, "Continuitiesin the Study of Power and Class in Africa," in Irving LeonardMarkovitz, ed., Studies in Power and Class in Africa (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 10-11. 2. See, for example, Samir Amin, Afrique de l'Ouest bloquee (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1971); Peter C. W. Gutkindand ImmanuelWallerstein,eds., The Political Economyof ContemporaryAfrica (London:Sage Publications, 1976). This perspective is also reflected in Rita Cruise O'Brien, ed., The Political Economy of Underdevelopment: Dependence in Senegal (London:Sage Publications, 1979). 3. On the symptoms of sub-SaharanAfrica's current economic crisis, see Richard Sandbrook, The Politics of Africa's Economic Stagnation(London:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1985), and Timothy Shaw, Towardsa Political Economyfor Africa (New York: Saint Martin's Press, 1985). Sandbrook'sbook is an interestingpolitical analysis of "why capitalism fails." 4. There is a growing "weak state" literaturewhich conceptualizesthe state as the public domain and argues that this domain is narrowerthan previously assumed. These analysts argue that the failure of the postcolonial state to transformsocieties in accordancewith elites' aspirationsreflects the continuing, and growing, gap between state and society. See, for example, Donald Rothchildand Naomi Chazan, eds., The Precarious Balance: State and Society in Africa (Boulder:Westview Press, 1988). I have not adoptedthis perspective. In this study, I retainthe instrumentalists' concern with the social bases of state power and its use. I also retain the structuralists'concern with identifying the economic arrangementsthat condition the natureand use of state power. 5. In contrast to many now contributing to the "weak state" literature, I do not take postcolonial political consolidationto be the antithesisof decline in state capacity. Rather, I argue that, in the case of Senegal, the former contributedto the latter. 6. This situationis describedin World Bank, "Reportand Recommendationsof the Presidentof the IBRD and the IDA to the Executive Directorson a ProposedStructuralAdjustmentLoan and Development Creditto the Republic of Senegal" (unpublisheddocument, Washington, D.C., November 26, 1980). 7. The analysis is drawn from CatherineBoone, "State Power and Private Interests:Politics, Markets, and the Textile Industryin Senegal" (Ph.D. diss., MassachusettsInstituteof Technology, 1987). 8. See Jacques Marseille, L'empire coloniale et capitalismefrangais: Histoire d'un divorce (Paris: Albin Michel, 1984). 9. See Samir Amin, Le monde des affaires Sdndgalais(Paris:tditions de Minuit, 1969). 10. France adhered strictly to the doctrine that the colonies "pay their own way" until 1946, when the French governmentbegan to finance limited investmentsin colonial economic infrastructure. 11. Donal Cruise O'Brien, Saints and Politicians: Essays on the Organization of a Senegalese Peasant Society (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1975); ChristianCoulon, Le Marabout et le Prince: Islam et pouvoir au Seindgal(Paris: elitions A. Pedone, 1981). 12. Ren6 Charbonneau,Marchds et marchandsen Afrique Noire (Paris: xlitions de la Colombe, 1961); Virginia Thompsonand RichardAdloff, French WestAfrica (London:George Allen and Unwin, 1958). 13. Until the late 1940s, the state provided French industrialiststhat were supplying the colonies with additional 354 This content downloaded from 158.143.192.135 on Wed, 08 Jul 2015 10:33:49 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CatherineBoone protectionby discouragingand in some cases outlawing the creation of manufacturingplants in French West Africa. Marseille, L'empire coloniale et capitalismefranyais; Pierre Moussa, Les chances economiques de la communautd franco-africaine (Paris:LibrarieArmandColin, 1957). 14. This shift in strategyoccurredin the context of declining profitabilityin the groundnuttrade, the post-WorldWar II intensificationof competitive pressureson world markets for manufacturedgoods, and ultimately the spectre of decolonization. See Thompson and Adloff, French WestAfrica, and Michael Crowder, WestAfrica under Colonial Rule (Evanston:NorthwesternUniversity Press, 1968). French industriesthat created manufacturingsubsidiaries in Senegal in the 1950s forged partnershipswith the dominantFrench import-exportcombines. State regulation of all importsmade these partnershipsdesirableand viable. Price fixing and marketsharingagreementsworkedto eliminate conflicts between French industrialand commercialinterestsin the FrenchWest African market, 15. Richard Joseph, "The Gaullist Legacy: Patterns of French Neo-Colonialism," Review of African Political Economy,6 (1976); Rita Cruise O'Brien, ed., The Political Economyof Underdevelopment. 16. The strategyof decolonizationthroughpolitical balkanizationof the federation,the legal frameworkfor electing internalregimes before independence, French financial backing of select parties and candidates, the elimination of Marxist-orientedpolitical parties in Senegal from the election rolls and the subsequentoutlawing of these parties, the fragmentationand manipulationsof the tradeunion movement, and the use of militaryand police force to crush urban protest movements all worked to ensure the initial and subsequentelectoral victories of Senghor and his party, the UPS. See George Martens, "Revolutionou participation:Syndicatset partispolitiquesau Srnrgal: Premidre-quatrieme partie," Le Mois en Afrique, nos. 205-206, 209-214 (1983). After independencein 1962, the French committed financial and military resources to protect and stabilize not only the Senghor regime, which faced opposition from organizedand vocal urbangroups(laborunions, the intelligentsia),but also the personalpower of Senghor, which was challenged by rivals within the ruling coalition. See Donal Cruise O'Brien, "Political Opposition in Senegal: 1960-1967," Governmentand Opposition, 2 (1967). 17. Avenues of political participationand debate narrowedas organizedgroups pushing for economic reforms, such as labor unions and Marxist-orientedpolitical parties, were outlawed or marginalized. The military and financial backing of France facilitated the institutionalizationof the one-party state and strengthened it against domestic challenges. 18. Robert Bates, Politics and Marketsin TropicalAfrica (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1981), p. 6. 19. The descriptionof clientelism and faction building presentedhere is based on previous studies of the Senghor regime. See FranqoisZuccarelli, Un parti politique africain: L'Union Progressiste Sdndgalaise(Paris:R. Pichon et R. Durand-Auzias,1970); 'Lapido Adamolekun,"Bureaucratsand the Senegalese Political Process," Journal of Modern African Studies, 9 (1971); D. Cruise O'Brien, Saints and Politicians; Coulon, Le Marabout et le prince; Lucy C. Behrman, Muslim Brotherhoods and Politics in Senegal (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970): JonathanBarker, "Political Factionalism in Senegal," Canadian Journal of African Studies, 7 (1973): Edward J. Schumacher, Politics, Bureaucracy, and Rural Development in Senegal (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975); Robert H. Jackson and Carl G. Rosberg, Personal Rule in Black Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982). 20. Over 50 percentof the votes cast for the UPS in the elections of the 1960s came from the groundnutbasin (the regions of Thins, Diourbel, and Sine-Saloum). Zuccarelli, Un parti politique africain, p. 147. 21. See analyses of clientelism such as Susan KaufmanPurcell, "Clientelism,Corporatism,and Political Stability in Mexico," in S. N. Eisenstadtand R. Lemarchand,Political Clientelism, Patronage, and Development(Beverly Hills: Sage Publishers, 1981); and Peter Flynn, "Class, Clientelism, and Coercion: Some Mechanisms of Internal Dependency and Control," Journal of Commonwealthand ComparativePolitics, 12 (1974). 22. The Senegalese Investment Code, promulgatedin 1961, reaffirmedall the advantages and rights granted to French firms under colonial investment law. SONED, Eldments d'Int6grationIndustrielle, vol. 1 (Dakar, 1977). Monopolies were only grantedunderthe termsof the InvestmentCode, and this code was designed explicitly to attract foreign direct investment. Special regimes governing local private investmentwere added to the InvestmentCode in 1977. 23. For example R. Cruise O'Brien, ed., The Political Economyof Underdevelopment. 24. Schumacher, Politics, Bureaucracy, and Rural Development in Senegal; Amin, Le monde des affaires Senigalais. 25. RobertBates, Essays on the Political Economyof RuralAfrica (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1983). 26. For an account of the 1968 general strike and the demonstrations,riots, and protests that accompaniedit, see Martens, "Revolutionou participation." 355 This content downloaded from 158.143.192.135 on Wed, 08 Jul 2015 10:33:49 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ComparativePolitics April 1990 27. On the exponential increase in the numberof Senegalese importersoperatingin government-controlledcircuits after 1970, see IDET-CEGOS,etudes des circuits de distributionau Senigal (Dakar:May 1974); RdgineNguyen Van Chi-Bonnardel, Vie de relations au Senegal: La circulation des biens (Dakar: IFAN, 1978). The analysis of the expansionof the trading"class" and of the role of political patronagein this process that is presentedhere is based on Senegalese Central Bank studies of credit distribution;internalreports, memos, and policy papers of the Senegalese ministryof internalcommerce;policy implementationanalyses of the ministryof finance; ministryof industryreports of growing misuse of tradecontrols by clients of the regime; the commentaries,editorials, and analyses of this process thatfilled Dakarand Paris businesspublicationsafterthe early 1970s; and interviewswith Dakartraders,industrialists, and bureaucratsin 1984-1986. 28. D. Cruise O'Brien, Saints and Politicians; BoubacarBarry, "Le S6n6gal 1960-1980: L'arachide, bourgeoisie bureaucratique,et secheresse," paper presented at the Colloque sur les Ind6pendancesAfricaines, University of Zimbabwe,January8-11, 1984. Secondarysource materialsthat trace what is defined here as "the growing autonomy of subunits of the state" include N. Caswell, "Autopsie de I'ONCAD: La politique arachidiere du Senegal, 1966-1980," Politique Africaine, 14 (1984), which discusses the state groundnutmonopoly; Schumacher,Politics, Bureaucracy,and Rural Developmentin Senegal, pp. 82-83 and Sheldon Gellar, Senegal, an AfricanNation between East and West(Boulder:Westview Press, 1982), pp. 40-42, which discuss the devolution of central control over the parastatalsector, the increasingpower of cabinet-levelpoliticians, and the increasingautonomyof ruraladministrators; and Africa Confidential,Dec. 1, 1978, which describes the political machinebuilt within the ministryof finance after 1970. Coulon, Le Maraboutet le prince, pp. 278-286, analyzes the increasingautonomyof the maraboutsvis-A-vis the Dakarauthorities.The authoranalyzed the growing autonomyand prerogativesof the ministryof commerce and the DakarChambrede Commerce. Boone, "State Power and Private Interests". 29. ONCAD (Office National de CommercialisationAgricole et de DNveloppement). 30. The number 5,000 is an estimate. Caswell suggests that there was no definitive head count of ONCAD employees in the late 1970s. Caswell, "Autopsiede l'ONCAD". See also Africa Confidential,May 7, 1980. In 1978, a World Bank audit disclosed far-reachingcorruptionin ONCAD. The quote is from Gellar, Senegal, p. 56. 31. Donal CruiseO'Brien, "Les bienfaitsde 1'in6galit6:L'6tatet l'6conomie ruraleau Sen6gal," Politique Africaine, 14 (1984); Caswell, "Autopsie de I'ONCAD." 32. The mouridemarabouts organize and protect the extension of these ruralcircuits into the urbanareas and the largest marketsof Dakar. See M. C. Diop, "Les affaires mouridesA Dakar," Politique Africaine, 1 (1981). 33. Caswell, "Autopsie de l'ONCAD," p. 50. 34. Coulon, Le Maraboutet le prince; D. Cruise O'Brien, "Les bienfaits de l'indgalite." 35. Gouvernementdu S6n6gal, Ministbredu D6veloppement Industrielet de l'Artisanat, Rapport du Groupe du Travail Textile, Annexe 3 (September 25, 1981), p. 37; Ministry of Industry and Ministry of Commerce, "Recensementdu march6, 1984," reportedverballyto the authorby an ex-ministryof commerce official, Dakar,April 1985. 36. See note 27. For documentationprovidedby a Senegalese governmentsource, see SONED, Le textile au Sdnegal (Dakar: 1978). The situation deterioratedafter 1978. The index of industrialproduction which compares yearly changes in the total volume of textile goods producedin Senegal reflects this. Using 1959 as the base year (100), the index of textile productionin Senegal reachedabout 250 in 1972. In 1982, the index indicatedthat textile production had dropped to near its 1959 base. Gouvernementdu S6n6gal, Direction de la Statistique, Indice de la production industrielle(published annually). 37. Taxes, tariffs, the inefficiency of the local industry,and the wide profit margins of foreign-owned industries inflated local prices, making local industryquite vulnerableto competition and generatingwindfall profits (rents) for those able to circumvent formal import restrictions. As Robert Bates argues, "Market intervention establishes disequilibriumprices. These, in turn, generaterants. (T)he rents. .. representpolitical resources--resourceswhich can be used to organizepolitical supportand to perpetuategovernmentsin power." Bates, Essays on the Political Economy of Rural Africa, p. 129. 38. Critiquesof the powerful "smuggling lobby" filled the Dakaroispress, in opposition newspaperson the left and the "right" (Taxaw, Liberte) and in news periodicalsorientedto the French business community(Africa). Criticisms of influential smugglers (fraudeurs) which appeared in internal reports issued by the ministries of industry, development,and finance were less direct thanpress accounts, yet biting nevertheless.Frenchand Lebanese importers and industrialistswere the most public and vocal critics of smuggling and fraudulentimportationbecause their interests were hurt the most. By the later 1970s, the situation was so pervasive and widely recognized that the progovernment 356 This content downloaded from 158.143.192.135 on Wed, 08 Jul 2015 10:33:49 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CatherineBoone daily newspaper,Le Soleil, ran a series of articleson "politically influential"fraudeurs in the textile business, arguing that these people were underminingthe nationalpatrimony,the industrialsector. Le Soleil, Nov. 6-9, 1978. 357 This content downloaded from 158.143.192.135 on Wed, 08 Jul 2015 10:33:49 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions