EXTRACTIVE AND INCLUSIVE INSTITUTIONS IN AFRICA: THE CASES OF MADAGASCAR, MOROCCO, SENEGAL, AND BOTSWANA

Abstract

The models of inclusive and extractive institutions within the economic and social systems of the countries are described by Daron Acemoglu, James Robinson and Simon Johnson in their works, rewarded with the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2024. The great majority of the states of Africa belong to the extractive model, with a weak state, a narrow elite dominating the institutions of power and spoiling the meager resources of the countries, which results in underdevelopment and chronic social and political instability, like in Madagascar. On the other hand, we have the inclusive model, with a strong state where the institutions are accomplishing their functions of security, protecting private property and enforcing a participative democracy, representing the best way into development and shared prosperity, like in Botswana. However, even in Africa each state is different, and various intermediary situations can be described between the two models, where the struggle between the power of the state and the power of society generates very particular cases, autocracy and democracy coexist in a peculiar combination at the top levels of power and this has also serious consequences on the economic and social situation of the peoples concerned, like in Morocco and Senegal.