Scarcity, Choice and Public Policy in Middle Africa / Donald Rothchild, Robert L. Curry, and Robert L. Robert L. Curry.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rothchild, Donald S., author.

Curry, R. L. (Robert Louis), author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Policy sciences.

Policy sciences--Africa.

Africa--Economic policy.

Africa.

Africa--Politics and government.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (368 p.)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley, California : University of California Press, [1978]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

New challenges and opportunities have come to the fore as the middle African States have consolidated their independence. In grappling with economic scarcity and restricted choice, decision-makers must transform domestic institutions and practices and reformulate their relationship to the global economy. The authors of this book believe that their efforts can be advanced by resorting to a problem-solving focus. Such an approach will, in their opinion. allow social scientists to remain true to their professional disciplines while permitting them to embrace African-designated objectives. By inquiring into decision processes and results, policy analysis seeks to identify optimal courses of action in the context of prevailing societal demands and constraints. In general, African decision-makers have adopted three choice strategies with an eye to reducing scarcity and expanding alternatives: accommodation, reorganization, and transformation. When these choice strategies are related to system goals, striking variations in preferences and priorities emerge, the most significant of which concern decision on mobilizing and distributing resources and achieving freedom from external control. In various trade--off situations (involving negotiations by producer cartels, bargaining between multinational companies and African host countries, and external economic assistance) diverse policy patters among the groups in relating to the benefits and costs of particular lines of action appear. Each choice strategy has its own benefit-cost combination. Since no approach may be equally valid cross-nationally, the decision elites of each country are left with the responsibility for determining their own goals and priorities. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the

brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1978.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

CHAPTER 1. Political Economy and Policy Choice in theThird World

CHAPTER 2. Changing Institutional Resources

CHAPTER 3. System Goals, Decision-making Rules, and Collective Choices

CHAPTER 4. Global Market Contacts: Bargaining Between Multinational Companies and African Governments

CHAPTER 5. Beyond the Nation-State: Principles of Economic Integration

CHAPTER 6. Policy Integration and External Action: A Minimalist Choice

CHAPTER 7. Global Assistance for Development: Choosing an Appropriate Policy to Cope with Scarcity

CHAPTER 8. Reducing Scarcity and Expanding Choice

Index

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 28. Sep 2020)

Description based on print version record.

Includes index.

ISBN:

9780520312159

0520312155

OCLC:

1198929230