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"By the end of the twentieth century, sub-Saharan Africa had experienced twenty-five years of economic and political disaster. While 'economic miracles' in China and India raised hundreds of millions from extreme poverty, Africa seemed to have been overtaken by violent conflict and mass destitution, and ranked lowest in the world in just about every economic and social indicator. Working in Busia, a small Kenyan border town, economist Edward Miguel began to notice something different starting in 1997: modest but steady economic progress, with new construction projects, flower markets, shops, and ubiquitous cell phones. In "Africa's Turn?" Miguel tracks a decade of comparably hopeful economic trends throughout sub-Saharan Africa and suggests that we may be seeing a turnaround. He bases his hopes on a range of recent changes: democracy is finally taking root in many countries; China's successes have fueled large-scale investment in Africa; and rising commodity prices have helped as well. Miguel warns, though, that the growth is fragile. Violence and climate change could derail it quickly, and he argues for specific international assistance when drought and civil strife loom."--Book cover.

A review essay on a book by Steven Radelet, Emerging Africa: How 17 Countries Are Leading the Way (Center for Global Development, 2010).

This article examines how government policies affect ethnic relations by comparing outcomes across two nearby districts, one in Kenya and one in Tanzania, using colonial-era boundary placement as a "natural experiment." Despite similar geography and historical legacies, governments in Kenya and Tanzania have followed radically different language, education, and local institutional policies, with Tanzania consistently pursuing more serious nation building. The evidence suggests that nation building has allowed diverse communities in rural Tanzania to achieve considerably better local public goods outcomes than diverse communities in Kenya. To illustrate, while Kenyan communities at mean levels of diversity have 25 percent less local school funding than homogeneous communities on average, the comparable figure in the Tanzanian district is near zero. The Kenya-Tanzania comparison provides empirical evidence that serious reforms can ameliorate social divisions and suggests that nation-building should take a place on policy agendas, especially in Africa. (World Politics / SWP)

Cover; Title; Copyright; Contents; Chapter One: Fighting For Economic Development; Chapter Two: Suharto, Inc.; Chapter Three: The Smuggling Gap; Chapter Four: Nature or Nurture? Understanding the Culture of Corruption; Chapter Five: No Water, No Peace; Chapter Six: Death by a Thousand Small Cuts; Chapter Seven: The Road Back From War; Chapter Eight: Learning to Fight Economic Gangsters; Epilogue: Doing Better This Time; Postscript to the Paperback Edition; Acknowledgments; Notes; Index.