Managing Development: EU and African Relations through the Evolution of the Lome and Cotonou Agreements

In: Historical materialism: research in critical marxist theory, Band 12, Heft 4, S. 203-230

Abstract

A contribution to a symposium, "Marxism and African Realities," explores European Union (EU) policies related to the African, Caribbean, & Pacific (ACP) group of developing states, drawing on Stephen Gill's Gramscian notion of hegemony as self-reflexive, actively constructed, & incorporating both consensual & coercive features. It is argued that the EU has played an important role in redesigning development strategies to complement the global shift to neoliberal accumulation that targets the increasingly integrated project to "lock-in" the gains of capital over labor. Complementary projects of "redesigning" & "locking-in" are applied to the Lome & Cotonou Agreements to show that they represent a hegemonic shift in the form of a transition away from the social-democratic compromise of the welfare & developmental state. The process of redesigning ACP countries into regional economic partnership agreements leads many African governments to see conformity to World Trade Organization rules as the only viable developmental option. Consequently, these states surrender important future policy options & commodification is expanded to unprecedented levels. Resistance to neoliberal global constitutionalism is discussed. 58 References. J. Lindroth