Partisan politics and sectoral policy in Africa's agro-export commodity chains

Even after economic liberalization in the 1990s, the role of the state in Africa’s traditional tropical commodity export sectors has remained extensive. This paper argues that post-liberalization, these patterns of state regulation have often been shaped by the pressures and incentives of partisan politics, just as they were in earlier decades. We compare and contrast the changing institutional structure and patterns of state regulation in four agricultural commodity export sectors: Côte d'Ivoire-cocoa, Ghana-cocoa, Kenya-coffee, and Uganda-coffee. In spite of important differences, all four sectors are critical in providing resources, organizational structure, and policy mechanisms for building and maintaining electoral and other forms of political support for historically powerful political parties and/or power contenders. Post-1990s, each of the four cases presents an alternative pattern of alignment between export-sector organizations and partisan politics. Comparison across cases reveals the depth and variety of the ways in which domestic politics in African countries, including electoral politics, can shape state intervention in commodity chains for agro-exports, even in the neoliberal era. One implication for development studies is that domestic political and partisan dynamics are likely to continue to influence how governments use their “policy space” in supply chain governance in the future.