Economic crisis, long waves and the sustainability transition: An African perspective

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2012.11.001Get rights and content

Abstract

To make sense of the global crisis and a possible transition, many re-interpret the past as a set of successive long-term development cycles that could repeat in future. At the same time environmental pressures have resulted in the notion of a green economy. It is argued that the current global economic crisis simultaneously marks the end of the post-WWII long-term development cycle, the mid-point of the information age and potentially the start of a new era of sustainable development. It must be recognised that only certain futures are being imagined with Africa's options largely ignored. As African growth rates rise as demand for its resources increase, it is necessary to question whether Africa is appropriately positioned to take advantage of the next long-term development. The new discourse of ‘resource nationalism’ is promising, but only if governance modalities can be found that can transcend the resource curse.

Highlights

► Many popular accounts of the crisis depict the past and the future in terms of successive long-term development cycles. ► Recent UN Reports refer to the need for fundamental ‘structural transformation’. ► The global crisis could trigger a transition to sustainable development if the power of financial capital can be dislodged. ► Africa remains dependent on primary resource exploitation – this ‘resource curse’ will need to be broken.

Introduction

The two related but distinct features of the post-2007 global economic crisis have been the persistence of debt-driven recessionary conditions in Europe and North America, and the rise of the so-called ‘BRICS-plus’ economies in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Excluding South Africa, African economies in particular hardly felt the impact of the recession with most of the key economies continuing to experience average economic growth rates not seen since the 1960s. At the same time, a growing body of popular and academic literature has turned to long-wave theory to contextualise the crisis and predict the system dynamics of possible future trajectories of transition. While long-wave theory certainly helps to overcome the problem of seeing the crisis as a surprising accident that will soon be rectified by rational economic policy interventions, it suffers from a tendency to focus on global logics that are presumed to apply to all regions thus ignoring the specificities of regional dynamics. Both angles are needed: a sense of longer-run historical trajectories and appreciation of regional specificities.

This paper engages the growing literature on sustainability transitions and long-wave theory from a ‘global South’ perspective. It will be argued that the persistence of the global economic crisis can be attributed to a ‘blocked transition’ caused by the failure to dislodge the hegemony of finance capital and break the ‘carbon lock-in’. A transition will most likely only emerge when the following conditions are in place: finance capital has been disciplined; the digitization of production and consumption is further extended under the leadership of productive capital; and the installation of the ‘green-tech’ revolution driven by finance capital is accelerated in response to deepening ecological crises. This perspective is then applied to two discussions: the ‘green economy’ proposals that have emanated from several agencies and the call by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) for the “sustainable structural transformation” of African economies. Both applications confirm that a balance is needed between an understanding of long-wave perspectives and analyses of regional specificities.

In Section 2 the current global economic crisis is defined as a ‘polycrisis’ that can, in turn, be usefully understood from the perspective of long waves of historical development across different temporal scales. Section 3 describes the primary socio-metabolic transitions – the agricultural and industrial revolutions – in order to propose a template for thinking about what may turn out to be the ‘green-tech revolution’. Section 4 describes the dynamics and modalities of technological revolutions and argues that we may be moving into a new phase of global development that is driven by both the deployment phase of the Information Age and the installation phase of the green-tech revolution. Section 5 takes this argument further by suggesting that the post-World War II period ending in the economic contraction of 2009 can be seen as a long-term global development cycle that has now come to an end. The next cycle will not only be shaped by the usual financial and economic drivers but also now by ecological drivers. Section 6 then applies this conceptual framework to an understanding of the emerging green economy discourse. Whereas Germany, South Korea and China may be emerging leaders of the emerging green-tech revolution, in Section 7 Africa's options are reconsidered in order to highlight the significance of regional specificities non-aligned with more dominant trajectories in the rest of the world. Section 8 provides a conclusion that poses some key questions for future research.

Section snippets

Rethinking the polycrisis from a long-wave perspective

The global economic crisis has generated a new literature that draws on long-wave theory to re-imagine present and future landscapes. They represent what Geels (2010) would refer to as clusters of discursive and cultural ontologies of probable futures. These include consultant's advisories and popular literature aimed at business audiences (Allianz Global Investors, 2010, Bradfield-Moody and Nogrady, 2010, Rifkin, 2011); the policy-oriented research-based literature generated from a variety of

Socio-metabolic transitions

There is an increasingly common trend within academic and non-academic analyses of the crisis to identify purely economic causes of the crisis (of various kinds), followed by a set of conclusions about remedies that then add on at the end suggestions that the next phase of global growth will more than likely also be ‘green’, ‘low carbon’ or even ‘sustainable’. This move amounts to an afterthought that recognises the negative economic consequences of ‘externalities’, but these externalities are

Technological revolutions

The substantial body of work by Venezuelan economist Carlota Perez has deeply influenced those who write about technological cycles. Because her core argument and understanding of the crisis is replicated in this volume, suffice it say here that she identified five ‘transitions’, each associated with specific technological revolutions that emerged at particular historic moments since the onset of the industrial revolution in the 1770s. Each followed the familiar S-curve with an installation and

Global development cycles

To improve our understanding of the linkages between the socio-technical cycles that Perez has identified and the dynamics of global economic development, it is necessary to turn to the work of UNCTAD economist Charles Gore who, like Perez, elaborates a long-wave approach to the global crisis (Gore, 2010). He has located the socio-technical cycles described by Perez within what he refers to as the Kondratieff-like ‘global development cycle’ that began in the 1950s and ended with the global

Making sense of the green economy

Recent years have seen a surge in the number of policy documents advocating a transition of some sort to a ‘green economy’ (see Association of Academies of Science in Asia, 2011, Barbier, 2010, European Commission, 2010, European Commission, 2011, Jaeger, 2011, OECD, 2011, United Nations Environment Programme, 2011a, United Nations Environment Programme, 2011b, United Nations, 2011). In light of the argument thus far, the key question is whether these discourses represent more than just the

Can Africa transcend the resource curse?

As already noted, technological revolutions and global development cycles develop unevenly across geographical space. Africa's development experience confirms this most clearly. It is generally accepted that in contrast to Asia, Africa did not benefit from the dynamics of the post-WWII global development cycle, especially the second half. This, however, was not an inevitable outcome but rather a function of policy choices (Ampiah and Naidu, 2008, Southall and Melber, 2009). The question today

Conclusion

The global economic crisis will only come to an end when finance capital has been disciplined; the information technology revolution matures into its deployment phase under the leadership of productive capital; and the installation of the ‘green-tech’ revolution driven by finance capital is accelerated in response to deepening ecological crises. However, we face a structurally blocked transition superimposed on a socio-metabolic crisis reflected in rising resource prices. The consequences for

References (83)

  • A. Smith et al.

    The governance of sustainable socio-technical transitions

    Research Policy

    (2005)
  • O. Acker et al.

    The Global ICT 50: the supply side of digitization

    Strategy and Business

    (2012, autumn)
  • African Development Bank, 2010. African Economic Outlook 2010. Moulineaux, Fr.: African Development Bank Group....
  • Allianz Global Investors

    The Sixth Kondratieff – Long Waves of Prosperity

    (2010)
  • Altvater, E., 2009. Postneoliberalism or postcapitalism? The failure of neoliberalism in the financial market crisis....
  • K. Ampiah et al.

    Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon? Africa and China

    (2008)
  • A. Amsden

    Like the rest: South-East Asia's ‘Late’ Industrialisation

    Journal of International Development

    (1995)
  • Association of Academies of Science in Asia

    Towards a Sustainable Asia: Green Transition and Innovation

    (2011)
  • E.B. Barbier

    A Global Green New Deal

    (2010)
  • B.J.L. Berry

    Long-Wave Rhythms in Economic Development and Political Behaviour

    (1991)
  • R. Blackburn

    Crisis 2.0

    New Left Review

    (2011)
  • J. Bradfield-Moody et al.

    The Sixth Wave: How to Succeed in a Resource-Limited World

    (2010)
  • Broadberry, S., 2007. Recent developments in the theory of very long run growth: a historical appraisal. Department of...
  • Buttonwood

    Marginal improvement

    The Economist

    (2012)
  • M. Castells
    (1997)
  • H.J. Chang

    Bad Samaritans: Rich Nations, Poor Policies and the Threat to the Developing World

    (2007)
  • V. Chibber

    Locked in Place: State-Building and Late Industrialization in India

    (2003)
  • P. Collier

    The Political Economy of Natural Resources

    Social Research

    (2010)
  • European Commission

    Europe 2020: A European Strategy for Smart

    Sustainable and Inclusive Growth

    (2010)
  • European Commission

    Life and Resource Efficiency: Decoupling Growth from Resource use

    (2011)
  • P. Evans

    Constructing the 21st century developmental state: potentialities and pitfalls

  • J. Fagerberg

    Schumpeter and the revival of evolutionary economics: an appraisal of the literature

    Journal of Evolutionary Economics

    (2003)
  • M. Fischer-Kowalski et al.

    Socioecological Transitions and Global Change: Trajectories of Social Metabolism and Land use

    (2007)
  • M. Fischer-Kowalski et al.

    Decoupling Natural Resource Use and Environmental Impacts from Economic Growth. Report for the International Resource Panel

    (2011)
  • T. Flannery et al.

    The Critical Decade: International Action on Climate Change

    (2012)
  • C. Freeman et al.

    As Time Goes by: From Industrial Revolutions to the Information Revolution

    (2001)
  • C. Gore

    Global recession of 2009 in a long-term development perspective

    Journal of International Development

    (2010)
  • P. Gowan

    Crisis in the Heartland

    New Left Review

    (2009)
  • J. Grin et al.

    Transitions to Sustainable Development: New Directions in the Study of Long Term Transformative Change

    (2010)
  • H. Haberl et al.

    A socio-metabolic transition towards sustainability? Challenges for another great transformation

    Sustainable Development

    (2011)
  • C. Hargroves et al.

    The Natural Advantage of Nations: Business Opportunities, Innovation and Governance in the 21st Century

    (2005)
  • Cited by (32)

    • Transformative investment: New rules for investing in sustainability transitions

      2023, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions
    • Relating financial systems to sustainability transitions: Challenges, demands and design features

      2020, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions
      Citation Excerpt :

      As the “old” and “new” development pathways co-exist, tensions between the two may lead to what Gramsci (1971) called “morbid symptoms” such as inertia and an inability to act, actions that are too late to achieve any benefit for those affected, a struggle for survival by incumbent institutions and practices, the risk of further social inequality, and fear of job losses. A potential morbid symptom is the dominance of green growth imperatives for creating the new economic system, which reflects the high-growth expectations of governments, business and citizens and increases the risk of financial crises (Antal and van den Bergh, 2013; Loorbach and Huffenreuter, 2013; Vergragt, 2013; Witt, 2013; Geels, 2013; Swilling, 2013). The new sustainable economic path is framed as green growth (Jacobs, 2012) and the new industries that emerge represent opportunities for entrepreneurs and venture capitalists (Perez, 2013; van der Ploeg and Withagen, 2013; Swilling, 2013).

    • Capitalism in sustainability transitions research: Time for a critical turn?

      2020, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions
      Citation Excerpt :

      In other words, most STR related to the Global South has relied on convergence or catch-up theories. Consequently, as Swilling (2013) warned, ‘only certain futures are being imagined with […] options largely ignored’ (p. 96). In contrast, considerations of capitalism in STR would expose the global economic interconnections, capital flows and telecoupling that in fact may imply the impossibility to study or promote sustainability transitions in the South that are not inherently linked to the North (and vice versa) as various studies of energy transitions and clean development suggest (e.g. Swilling, 2013; Bryant et al., 2015).

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text