Alden Young, Drexel University
Alden Young, Drexel University
Transforming Sudan: The Rise and Fall of Developmentalism
Transforming Sudan: The Rise and Fall of Developmentalism
Following the conclusion of the Second World War, the nature of inequality in Africa was dramatically altered. In this paper, Alden Young traces the emergence of economic developmentalism as the ideology of the Sudanese state in the decolonization era. Young how the state was transformed, through the international circulating tools of economic management and the practice of economic diplomacy, from the management of a collection of distinct populations, to the management of a national economy based on individual equality. By studying the hope and eventual disillusionment this ideology gave to late colonial officials and then Sudanese politicians and policymakers, Young demonstrates its rise, and also its shortfalls as a political project in Sudan, particularly its inability to deal with questions of regional and racial equity, not only showing how it fostered state formation, but also civil war.