Political Regimes, Systemic Practices, and Emergence in African and Post-Soviet States

During the 1990s the dissemination of neopatrimonialism went along with a transformation of the African state into a global prototype of the anti-développemental state. The anaytical distinction between systems within which neopatrimonial practices are regulated or ringfenced (neopatrimonialism within the state) and situations of thoroughly neopatrimonial rule (predatory) enables to restore the axiological neutrality of the concept. This also enables to reconnect with debates and concepts which, in South East Asia, Latin America, and, today, in the post-soviet states, endorse such a dichtomy. The mobilisation of neopatrimonialism in conjunction with the study of the state-business nexus also calls for adjustment. The achievements of Mauritius help to set the basis for conceptual clarification of what a developmental state is about. Current debates on ‘emerging’ Africa, also call for the adoption of new tools, especially the notion of crony capitalism which highlights that the state is no longer the only source of accumulation.