By Abdul Tejan-Cole
On March 12, 2020, Africa lost one of its finest sons. Malawian born Professor, Thandika Mkandawire, one of the continent’s best political economist and development studies practitioners passed away in Stockholm, Sweden. He died from complications caused by COVID-19 following a stroke in January.
Born on October 10, 1940, in Gwanda, Zimbabwe to a Zimbabwean mother and a Malawian father who was from Malawi. Thandika, as he was popularly called, studied at Zomba Catholic Secondary School but spent a lot of time in Zimbabwe and the Copperbelt region in northern Zambia. Although his family moved back to Malawi and started work briefly as a journalist, his stay in the country was shortlived. He was imprisoned and was eventually forced into exile in Sweden during the one-party dictatorship of Malawi’s first President, Hastings Kamuzu Banda. He sought political refuge and later acquired Swedish citizenship.
Thandika acquired his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees in Economics at Ohio State University, a masters from the University of Stockholm, and a Doctorate in Letters from Rhodes University in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. He was awarded honorary degrees from Universities in Finland, Ghana and Canada. Thandika had an illustrious career spanning over five decades. From 1982 to 1985, he worked for the Zimbabwe Institute of Development Studies (ZIDS). He then moved to Dakar, Senegal and served as the third Executive Secretary of Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) from 1985 to 1996. This was followed by a stint in Geneva as Director of United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) from 1998 until he retired in 2009. At the time of his death, Thandika was a professor of African Development at the London School of Economics. He also taught at Universities in Sweden and Zimbabwe. He was Olof Palme Professor for Peace with the Swedish Institute for Future Studies and served on the board of the Social Science Research Council. He worked for the World Bank and many other institutions in many parts of the world, including the US, Ecuador and many parts of Africa.
Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic did not allow us to give him the recognition he deserved, but many paid tribute to one of Africa’s intellectual giants online. In his country of birth, the Malawi Nation quotes National Planning Commission chairperson Professor Richard Mkandawire (not related) as saying that Thandika’s death is a huge loss to Malawi and Africa describing Thandika as “a huge reservoir of intellectual clout. He made a major contribution in defining how Africa can provide leadership. “He was totally committed to developing national capacity for African countries.”
In a release, CODESIRA described him as “a brilliant economist and prodigious scholar whose works on African political economy challenged dominant ways of seeing the African continent on a wide range of issues that included structural adjustment and economic reform, democratic politics, neopatrimonialism and insurgent violence…To Africans, especially intellectuals, university administrators and leaders in various contexts, Mkandawire bequeaths a legacy that can only be ignored at one’s peril….His brilliance was matched by his humility, wit and willingness to mentor new generations of scholars.
On behalf of the London School of Economics, Ken Shadlen, Professor of Development Studies and Head of Department of International Development, described Thandika as “a giant in the field of development economics. He brought a depth of knowledge and insight to the field; the Department – and all of LSE – will always be a better place for the decade he spent with us. Thandika was a beacon of transformative research on African development, never shy to challenge the conventional wisdom. An inspirational thinker and great teacher, he was full of innovative perspectives…Thandika had a gift that allowed him to weigh in persuasively in key debates, and that gave his research a global reach. Thandika’s depth of understanding was magnified throughout his career by active engagement with institutions of research and higher education, through which he sought to nurture informed thinking about Africa, not only through his own research, but by generating frameworks to nurture the work of fellow African scholars, African students and students of Africa. His impact on development economics and the social sciences is deep and will be long-lasting.”
In its online tribute, UNRISD notes that “Thandika held the strong conviction that the perspectives of the global South had to be central in both the process and the substance of development research. He believed that with realistic vision and well-crafted policies, developing countries could “leapfrog” and catch up with developed countries. He eschewed any kind of linear view of history and development, as well as the idea (widespread in development discourse and practice since the 1980s) that transfer of a single type of institution or policy (or institutional or policy model) could be a panacea for developmental problems…he consistently argued that developing countries have a vast range of lessons at their disposal and could learn from others, so as not to mechanically retrace the path traversed by the forerunners, but rather to forge their own developmental paths appropriate to their circumstances and preferences.”
Glowing tributes for a true giant who genuinely loved the continent. Ibbo Mandaza, the Zimbabwean academic, described Thandika as “a Pan-African par excellence, not confined to the boundaries of a nation-state.” He noted that Thandika represented a crop of scholars who maintained an unfailing faith in Africa and an uncompromising commitment to contributing to positive socio-economic change in the continent. Even exile, Thandika strongly believed that the African Diaspora had a pivotal role in the rethinking of a new Africa. He never missed an opportunity to call for Africans to reclaim leadership over their development. He firmly believed that Africa could compete in an increasingly globalized world.
Thandika was one of the first and fiercest critics of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank’s Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAP) and Poverty Reduction Strategies. He argued that the deflationary policies under the structural adjustment policies (SAPs) placed African economies on a “low growth path” and discouraged investments, trade expansion and diversification by undermining the investment-growth-trade nexus. As a result, African economies were so maladjusted that they responded poorly to a range of economic stimuli. Thandika and his disciple of African scholars who advanced this argument were completely vindicated with the dramatic failure of these programs and their abandonment by the Bretton Woods institutions. They were never intended to promote development on the continent but to weaken and make Africa more dependent.
Thandika believed in the African state. He was one of the leading proponents of the developmental state in Africa. He dismissed the argument that the developmental state was impossible in Africa. He argued that Africa has had states that were ‘developmental’ in both their aspirations and economic performance. In his paper, “From Maladjusted States to Democratic Developmental States”, he advocated for greater resource mobilization and efficient use of these resources, the reconstruction of the administrative apparatus of the state and addressing globalization through regional developmentalism. Although he noted that many developmental states have been authoritarian, he recognized the role of democratic politics and advocated for democratic developmentalism.
He argued that social well-being plays an important transformative role in development policy. In arguing for a developmental welfare state, Thandika noted that “Africa has had examples of countries whose ideological inclination was clearly "developmentalist" and that pursued policies that produced fairly high rates of growth in the post-colonial era and significant social gains and accumulation of human capital. African bureaucracies were able to extend infrastructure and social senses to degrees that were unimaginable under colonial rule. Moreover, in a significant number of countries, the political élite were able to reach arrangements that provided peace and stability. And, in a sense, "developmental states" are not totally alien to African climes. These experiences need to be critically examined for useful lessons.”
In “Neopatrimonialism and the Political Economy of Economic Performance in Africa: Critical Reflections” and “Thinking About Developmental States in Africa” Thandika noted that “In the African case "neo-patrimonialism" has been used to explain import substitution, export orientation, parastatals, privatization, the informal sector development, etc. The result is that, in seeking to explain everything, it explains nothing except perhaps that capitalist relations in their idealized form are not pervasive in Africa.” His empirical analysis demonstrates that neopatrimonialism can neither explain heterogeneity in political arrangements nor predict variability in economic outcomes. He argues that its dominance in scholarly and popular discourses of the continent derives from its appeal to crude ethnographic stereotypes.
In addition to being a great intellectual, Thandika was a warm and very accessible person. His brother’s daughter who he adopted described him as an amazing person, loving, caring and with a great sense of humour. Thandika’s humility always stood out. He was always smiling and laughing. He never missed an opportunity to socialize and to have a debate. Sadly as he spent most of his time out of the continent, Africa did not benefit as much as it should have his skills and thinking on economic development models, the political economy. But he mentored many disciples and touched the hearts of many others, who will no doubt continue his brilliant work. It was a pleasure to have met him and broken bread with him. Rest in Peace Thandika.
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