Nationalism,development, and social policy: The politics of nation-building in sub-Saharan Africa |
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Authors: | Michael Kpessa Daniel Béland André Lecours |
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Abstract: | This article examines the relationship between nation-building and social policy in post-independence sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). It argues that post-independence nationalist leaders used health, housing, and education programmes to foster a sense of national unity that would transcend the existing ethnic divisions created by the arbitrary drawing of state boundaries during colonization. Yet, in SSA, the neo-liberal turn of the 1980s favoured the decline of state-level integration and solidarity, which helped trigger territorial mobilization and fragmentation. As a consequence, the politics of welfare retrenchment in SSA does more than simply reduce benefits and increase inequalities; it also potentially weakens national unity. |
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Keywords: | Nation-building nationalism ethnicity social policy development sub-Saharan Africa |
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