Property, Institutions, and Social Stratification in Africa

Franklin Obeng-Odoom is Associate Professor of Development Studies at the University of Helsinki, Finland.

'Franklin Obeng-Odoom follows a growing cadre of scholarship generated by African scholars who are particularly engaging African economic issues in a distinctively, self-determined way. In doing exactly that, Property, Institutions, and Social Stratification in Africa is a brilliant book that intellectually grapples with the continent's sustained least developed ranking in the world. Be that as it may, the book also cleverly avoids – and actually effectively debunks – lazy, neoclassical explanations attributing Africa's poverty and inequality to its backwardness and traditional culture. Instead, Obeng-Odoom uniquely formulates a refreshing alternative thesis about African economic prospects using what he refers to as a new theory of black stratification economics. To this end, Obeng's deep structuralist analysis delicately reveals both the historical and continuing external expropriation and transfers of African land, labor, and capital as the source of the problem.' Rita Kiki Edozie, The John W McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies, UMass Boston

• Preface; Part I. The Problem: Introduction. The Global South in a 'compartmentalised world': 1. The foundations for a new beginning; Part II. Problematic Explanations and Solutions: 2. Property economics; 3. Land reform; 4. Human capital; 5. International trade; 6. Economic growth; Part III. Alternatives: 7. Socialism; 8. Africanisms; Concluding the groundwork for a new political economy of the Global South; Bibliography.