Understanding Promotion of Investment in Africa

Abstract

How has the United States government promoted private investment in Sub-Saharan Africa? When were key institutions and policies created and why? The purpose of this chapter is to provide an analytically eclectic framework for understanding foreign economic policy toward Africa that incorporates the interaction between systemic and domestic factors and points to the historical use of particular ideas about US investment in Africa to frame the discourse over policymaking. This is an effort to explain why and when we see continuity and change in policies related to promoting private investment in Africa. Primarily a study of one aspect of the formation of US economic relations with Africa, it is also designed to shed light on three key concerns: neoliberalism and the role of the state in the economy, the changing role of the United States in the global economy, and implications of US policy for economic growth in Africa.