Africa's Mess, Mugabe's Mayhem

Bibliographic Data

ID3220899
AuthorsRobert I Rotberg (corresponding author)
Year2000
Volume79
Issue5
Pages47
Publication date2000-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueForeign Affairs (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0015-7120 • E-ISSN: 2327-7793
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/20049887
OpenAlexW2283227518
LanguageEN
Citations received11

a mess, to quote Julius Nyerere, Tanzania's founding president, it is a mess made by its leaders. To be sure, Africa has its geographical constraints, a cascade of tropical medical ills, and a complex colonial legacy. But where visionary leadership lifted Asia up out of poverty since the 1960s, too many African heads of state in the same period presided over massive declines in African standards of living while carefully enriching themselves and their cronies. Some of Africa's current and recent leaders are capable, honest, and effective. But kleptocratic, patrimonial leaders?like President Robert Gabriel Mugabe of Zimbabwe?give Africa a bad name, plunge its peoples into poverty and despair, and incite civil wars and bitter ethnic conflict. They are the ones largely responsible for declining gdp levels, food scarcities, rising infant-mortality rates, soaring budget deficits, human rights abuses, breaches of the rule of law, and prolonged serfdom for millions?even in Africa's nominal democracies. These authoritarians, many of whom win or manipulate elections and thereby claim a democratic fa?ade, have proved hard to control and harder to oust; witness the Kenyan failure to vote out President

Economic history · Economics · Economy · Political science · African studies and sociopolitical issues · History · Public Administration

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