Kleptocracy
Sir: It is perhaps appropriate that an academic, who is not a 'professional friend of Africa,' should make some comment on Tibor Szamuely's glowing review of Professor An- dreski's The African Predicament (18 October).
The review gives the erroneous impression that Professor Andreski as a scholar has written a scholarly tome, 'based on wide reading and many years of first-hand study in the field,' but readers will search in vain for evidence, sources and clear substantiation of many of the learned professor's wilder claims.
There is, of course, a great deal of truth in Professor Andreski's analysis of the new Afri- can states and their ruling elites, but very little that Dumont and Balogh had not said several years before. However, a nagging question occurs again and again: is Africa really so different from other political systems? The United States has surely made pork barrel poli- tics into 'corruption as a system of govern- ment,' suitably modified by the democratic forms.
It is rare for reviewers to find a book to com- plement their own prejudices, but if they do one can hardly expect objectivity in the review.
Angus Hone Unit for Economic and Statistical Studies on Higher Education, London School of Econo- mics.
Previous page
