Policies in the 1950s and 1960s: The desirability of development planning was generally
accepted - by developed country observers as well as developing country theoreticians and
practitioners.6 On the ground, Mahalanobis in India, Prebisch in Latin America and visiting
economists in many African economies introduced Development Plans (see e.g. Killick,
1976). Economic policies promoted savings and investment, through state investment
especially in the very underdeveloped infrastructure, and the encouragement of foreign
investment; import-substituting industrialisation was adopted with high tariffs and other
import restrictions; the state was given a major role in determining economic priorities via
price and import controls, investment planning and sometimes as a producer.
In most countries, the state, continued to be organised in a P/C mode - adapting rather than
transforming the Colonial state. As Young puts it: “Although we commonly described the
independent polities as ‘new states’, in reality they were successors to the colonial regime,
inheriting its structures, its quotidian routines and practices, and its more normative theories
of governance.......In short , what Mbembe terms a principe autoritaire informed the inner
ethos of the postcolonial state”. (Young, p285,287). One party states were common, and
democracy rare: “development became a top-down agenda enforced on the peasantry”
(Mamdani, p288). Extreme examples include the Tanzanian villagisation project and the
centralised despotism of Mobutu’s Congo. In Senegal ”the state aims more and more at
direct administrative, ideological and political control over the dominated masses, be they
urban or rural” (Copans, p 248). A fairly authoritarian approach was adopted, with some
modifications, even in the more democratic countries - e.g. India and the West Indies.
In line with the prevailing economic philosophy and the nature of the state, economic policies
were designed largely in a P/C mode, with planning centrally directed, although there was
also much COOP rhetoric; financial incentives were also used to help bring about the desired
6 For example, although the policy prescriptions advocated by Fei and Ranis were not as
strongly interventionist as many of the writings of the time, they accepted that 'The need for
development planning is well recognised' ( Fei and Ranis, 1964, p199).
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