Journal of International Development
J. Int. Dev. 29, 386–403 (2017)
Published online 22 December 2016 in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/jid.3265
RETHINKING SPATIAL INEQUALITY IN
DEVELOPMENT: THE PRIMACY OF POWER
RELATIONS
ABDUL-GAFARU ABDULAI*
Department of Public Administration, University of Ghana Business School, Accra, Ghana
Abstract: Why do spatial inequalities emerge and persist? After showing that existing explanations
of spatial inequality are at best partial, this article argues that persistent spatial development disparities
are the product of the terms on which underdeveloped regions are incorporated into ruling coalitions.
In most cases, political elites from lagging regions are incorporated on marginal terms, undermining
their capacity to direct public resources to their constituents. Consequently, governments direct more
resources to relatively better-off and politically dominant regions, reinforcing spatial inequalities. Our
analyses highlight the importance of going beyond a dichotomous assessment of whether
disadvantaged regions are included or excluded from ruling coalitions to an examination of the terms
of their inclusion. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Keywords: spatial inequality; clientelist politics; power relations; inclusive political settlements
1 INTRODUCTION
Amidst growing international concerns about rising inequalities, spatial inequality has
been of particular concern mainly because of the tensions and conflicts that they often
engender (Kanbur, 2010). Østby (2007:2) utilised survey data from 55 countries to
calculate welfare inequalities between ethnic, religious and regional groups during
1986–2003, finding that ‘[a]ll the inequality measures, but particularly regional inequality,
are positively associated with higher risks of conflict outbreak’. As used here, spatial
inequality refers to ‘inequality in economic and social indicators of wellbeing across
geographical units within a country’ (Kanbur & Venables, 2005:11). Inspired mainly by
the literature on (new) economic geography, current influential accounts of spatial
inequality emphasise variations in geography and and the effectiveness of market forces
*Correspondence to: Abdul-Gafaru Abdulai, Department of Public Administration, University of Ghana Business
School, Legon, Accra, Ghana.
E-mail: ghaaff2000@yahoo.co.uk or agabdulai@ug.edu.gh
Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The Politics of Spatial Inequality 387
as the main explanatory factors (Kanbur & Venables, 2007; World Bank, 2009a).
Although a new set of literature has now increasingly gone beyond these techno-
econoomic accounts of spatial inequality, much of this emerging lierature has focused
almost exclusively on the impact of the quality of governance and institutions (van de
Walle, 2003; Ezcurra & Rodríguez-Pose, 2014; Tomaney, 2013; Rodríguez-Pose, 2013),
ignoring the question of why similar institutions have often produced very divergent
development outcomes in different settings.
In response to a growing level of disillusion regarding the capacity of new
institutionalist approaches to offer clear insights into why some countries are more
developed than others, some leading proponents (e.g. North et al., 2009; Acemoglu &
Robinson, 2012) have recently revised their approaches to take greater account of the
central role that politics and power relations play in shaping long-run processes of
development. A key feature of this new move has been to push development thinking
beyond an institutionalist approach by focusing on the underlying power arrangements that
underpin the emergence, stability and performance of institutions. From this perspective,
similar institutions produce divergent outcomes because the underlying power dynamics
between political elites are different. This line of thinking is most strongly exemplified
in Mushtaq Khan’s (2010) concept of political settlements, which highlights the primacy
of power relations over institutions for understanding processes of development and
underdevelopment. In identifying the mechanisms through which politics shapes spatial
development disparities, a political settlements approach focuses particularly on how elites
struggle to gain ‘holding power’ within ruling coalitions and the ways in which these
struggles shape the distribution of public resources (Abdulai, 2016).
This article adopts a political settlements approach to offer a deeper political
explanation to the problem of spatial inequality in developing countries, paying particular
attention to the impact of inter-elite power relations on the spatial distribution of public
resources. It argues that persistent spatial inequalities are the product of the terms on
which underdeveloped regions are incorporated into ruling coalitions. In most cases,
political elites from lagging regions are incorporated into ruling coalitions on relatively
marginal terms, undermining their capacity to direct substantial public resources to their
constituents. Consequently, governments direct more resources to relatively better-off
and politically dominant regions, reinforcing spatial inequalities. In this context, spatial
inequalities are underpinned not by the exclusion of lagging regions from political
decision-making structures, but from the inclusion of elites from such regions into ruling
coalitions on unfavourable terms. In this respect, it is important to go beyond a
dichotomous assessment of whether lagging regions are included or excluded from ruling
political coalitions to an examination of the terms of their inclusion because factions
within all ruling coalitions often have differing levels of power, and thus differing
capacities to influence institutional functioning and resource allocation in line with
their interests.
The paper proceeds as follows. The next section reviews current influential literature on
the underlying drivers of spatial inequalities, and highlights their shortcomings. Third, the
paper proposes a new theoretical framework for investigating the politics of spatial
inequality, before turning to discuss some important methodological issues in relation to
this framework in Section 4. Section 5 utilises the political settlements framework
to explain the evolution and persistence of regional inequality, drawing examples from
a number of countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Section 6 concludes and highlights
policy implications.
Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Int. Dev. 29, 386–403 (2017)
DOI: 10.1002/jid
388 A.-G. Abdulai
2 EXPLAINING PERSISTENT SPATIAL INEQUALITIES: A REVIEW OF
SELECTED LITERATURE
This section reviews selected influential literature on spatial inequalities, focusing on
arguments concerning state interventions versus free markets, variations in geography
and the new economic geography approach. The literature on spatial inequality was
initially dominated by economic explanations. Lipshitz (1992) has categorised these
explanations under three broad themes: the convergence, divergence and radical
paradigms. The convergence perspective, advanced by neoclassical economists, considers
spatial inequality as a natural, but short-lived phenomenon that arises from temporal
market failures. It is argued that in the long-run, and provided there are no barriers to factor
mobility, ‘…the market mechanism will be equilibrating and any disparities in regional
wages will tend to disappear over time’ (McCombie, 1988:267).
The underlying thinking is that in a free market economy, labour and capital move in
opposite directions: while labour moves in search of higher wage locations, capital tends
to move in the opposite direction in search of lower cost locations. It is assumed that this
process will continue until such a time when the income per worker in both flourishing
and lagging regions is roughly equal, leading to convergence in regional incomes. A
similar logic underlies the well-known inverted U-shaped hypothesis which holds that
regional inequalities often increase in the early stages of a country′s development but
typically decline as markets become more effective and capitalist development progresses
(Williamson, 1965). Yet, the empirical evidence is clear that far from being a temporal
phenomenon, regional inequalities have remained a global reality, and have even
widened in many countries in recent years (World Bank, 2009a). This is in spite of, or
perhaps even because of, the vigorous pursuit of the free-market ideology since the
early 1980s.
The divergence perspective argues that left on their own, markets would lead to the
cumulative concentration of the factors of production in certain regions at the expense
of others. Myrdal (1957) invoked the concept of ‘circular and cumulative causation’ to
argue that once a region takes a lead in socio-economic development ahead of others,
all new major economic activities tend to be concentrated in the relatively developed
areas. From this perspective, the intervention of the state is crucial to overcoming
spatial inequalities.
However, the radical perspective perceives state elites as part of the problem of
deepening spatial inequality within countries. Rooted largely in neo-Marxist theories, these
analysts perceive regional inequalities as an inevitable outcome of capitalism (Harvey,
1975). It is argued that the dynamics of capital accumulation inherently creates a centre–
periphery structure in production in which the role of the periphery (marginalised regions)
is essentially to serve as: a labour reserve that can feed the expansion of production; and a
market place for absorbing the increasing quantities of commodities produced. In such
relations, lagging regions are merely ‘dependent colonies’ (Clark, 1980: 227), providing
reserves of labour and markets for exploitation by the core economy. Regional ‘catch-up’
becomes virtually impossible under such conditions.
These debates resonate with the more recent discussions concerning the impact of
economic globalisation on inequality. Contrary to claims that globalisation ‘has actually
promoted economic equality’ (Dollar & Kraay, 2002: 120), a large volume of empirical
studies show that the recent global trends towards widening spatial inequalities have partly
been ‘a consequence of the uneven impact of trade openness and globalization’ (Kanbur &
Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Int. Dev. 29, 386–403 (2017)
DOI: 10.1002/jid
The Politics of Spatial Inequality 389
Venables, 2005:1). It is argued that global integration leads to a sharper expression of
comparative advantage, and that regions whose geographical locations are better suited
for export-oriented production tend to derive the most benefit and grow faster than interior
regions (Kanbur, 2010). Yet this argument raises an important question: is the relationship
between geography and development outcomes deterministic?
Most scholars concur that geography is not destiny (Acemoglu & Robinson, 2012) and
substantial evidence suggests that appropriate spatially sensitive interventions can serve as
a powerful stimulus in overcoming geographical constraints in lagging areas. Based on an
analysis of the experience of some 58 developing and transition economies, Kanbur and
Venables (2005: 9) conclude that ‘a key determinant of household well-being in a region,
over and above household specific characteristics, is the quantity and quality of
infrastructure in that region’. Unsurprisingly, in previously backward areas such as the
Cerado and Northeast regions of Brazil and Thailand respectively, publicly targeted
infrastructural investments have recently enabled both regions to conquer important world
markets, defying previous claims that their ‘challenging agroecological characteristics,
remote locations, and high levels of poverty would prove impossible to overcome’ (World
Bank, 2009b: 23). These observations imply that the relationship between physical
geography and developmental outcomes is mediated by the distribution of public goods.
To this extent, the relative neglect of politics and power relations in much of current
accounts of spatial inequality is problematic because public investment patterns ultimately
reflect the decisions of some powerful elites in society.
The generally apolitical approach in extant liteature on spatial inequality is most evident
in the World Development Report 2009 which argues that because some regions are
naturally more endowed than others, economic growth will inevitably remain unbalanced,
and that efforts aimed at spreading economic production will only undermine national
economic growth and prosperity. Therefore, rather than trying to spread productive
investments to those currently excluded, developing country governments are advised to
adopt spatially blind institutions that allow market forces to concentrate productive
activities in economically prosperous regions while taking steps to move the poor from
marginalised regions to the areas where economic activities are booming: ‘Spatially blind
institutions that ensure well-functioning land markets, enforce property rights, and deliver
basic social services such as schooling and health care can be the mainstay of an economic
integration strategy to reduce the economic distance between lagging and leading areas’
(World Bank, 2009a: 29).
Yet these generally apolitical accounts of spatial inequality are problematic. Across the
developing world, empirical evidence suggests that those often at the ‘margins’ of
development are marginal not because they are far from centres of agglomeration, but
mainly because they are distant from centres of political power (Rigg et al., 2009). The
WDR 2006 on Equity and Development made this important point, and explained
persistent spatial inequalities as the product of ‘long-standing, unequal relations of power
between advantaged and lagging regions…’ (World Bank, 2005: 20). Moreover, by
emphasising the potentially progressive role of formal (spatially blind) institutions in
redressing spatial inequalities, this approach tends to ignore the crucial role of informal
institutions in shaping the adoption and implementation of policy decisions in developing
country context. As Khan (2010: 5) reminds us, the implementation of formal state
institutions in all low-income countries is shaped ‘by the significant exercise of power
based on informal organizations, typically patron-client organizations of different types’
(Khan, 2010: 5).
Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Int. Dev. 29, 386–403 (2017)
DOI: 10.1002/jid
390 A.-G. Abdulai
3 POLITICAL SETTLEMENTS AND SPATIAL INEQUALITY: A MORE
PROMISING APPROACH?
The concept of ‘political settlement’ has been defined as ‘the balance or distribution of
power between contending social groups and classes, on which any state is based’ (Di John
& Putzel, 2009: 4). At the heart of this concept is the argument that developmental
outcomes are shaped not so much by the design of ‘good’ institutions, but by the power
relationships within which institutions are embedded. Here, the role of inter-elite power
relations is emphasised over institutions because ‘if powerful groups are not getting an
acceptable distribution of benefits from an institutional structure, they will strive to change
it’ Khan, 2010: 4). The concept of power in this context refers to Khan (2010: 6) calls
‘holding power’ which refers to ‘the capability of an individual or group to engage and
survive in conflicts’ against other elite actors over the distribution of valuable resources.
From this perspective, poorer regions are marginalised not so much because of their own
internalised characteristics (e.g. bad geography), but ‘precisely because they do not have
the power to adjust institutions and policy in their favour’ (Parks & Cole, 2010: 7).
This approach draws attention to the ways in which inequalities in the distribution of
political power at the level of elites can underpin socio-economic inequalities at the mass
level by undermining public investments in regions with limited influence over decision-
making structures and processes. This is especially the case in developing country contexts
where informal institutions (principally patron–client relations) remain prevalent in part
because the limited size of the formal productive economy in the developing world implies
that political entrepreneurs lack the tax-base required to allocate resources to powerful
groups other than through off-budgetary processes (Khan, 2010).
Importantly, country case studies frequently show that as far as the distribution of
government resources is concerned, political institutions in most developing countries
are often characterised by ‘pork-barrel politics’, as regional elites try to acquire as much
public resources for their constituencies in exchange for political support (Abdulai,
2014; Brockerhoff & Hewitt, 2000). In this context, a region’s capacity to effectively
lobby and attract government expenditures is shaped directly by the level of its ‘bargaining
chips’ within ruling coalitions rather than by rational bureaucratic criteria (e.g. needs-based
allocation criteria). From this perspective, persistent spatial inequalities are mainly the
product of relationships of unequal power, with emphasis here on ‘power as political
representation’ (Mosse, 2010: 1157).
A political settlements approach thus holds a good deal of promise for enhancing our
understanding of the politics of spatial inequality, especially through its emphasis on the
distribution of power between ‘different groups and organizations contesting the
distribution of resources’ (Khan, 2010: 1). By focusing attention on the nature of ruling
coalitions and the actual distribution of power within them, a political settlement approach
makes it clear that spatial inequality can be underpinned not only by the political exclusion
of marginalised regions, but also through the inclusion of elites from such regions into
decision-making structures on terms that do not enhance (and potentially undermine) their
influence over resource allocation decisions. From a political settlement perspective, then,
an analysis of whether ruling political coalitions are inclusive or exclusive should go
beyond the quantitative inclusion of various ethno-regional groups to consider also the
terms of inclusion.
This suggestion can significantly advance our understandings of the current debates on
inclusive political settlements. Although scholars have increasingly highlighted the
Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Int. Dev. 29, 386–403 (2017)
DOI: 10.1002/jid
The Politics of Spatial Inequality 391
importance of inclusive political settlements for sustained peace and inclusive
development, there is often little reflection on the ‘how’ of inclusion and with what effects
for redistributive policies. Indeed, much of the current political settlements literature
suffers from an overly-simplistic included/excluded dichotomy, whereby the inclusiveness
of ruling political coalitions is often explained in terms of the inclusion of key elites that
have the potential to threaten the stability of ruling coalitions (Khan, 2010; Parks & Cole,
2010; Rocha Menocal, 2015; Bell, 2015).
Similar observations are evident in recent related literature, as with North et al. (2009)
distinction between ‘limited access orders’ and ‘open access orders’ and Acemoglu and
Robinson’s (2012) distinction between inclusive and exclusive political institutions.
Although without explicitly using the label ‘political settlement’, North et al (2009: 56)
argue that developing countries are generally ‘ruled by a dominant coalition’, and that
‘people outside the coalition have only limited access to organizations, privileges and
valuable resources and activities’. I argue that factions inside ruling coalitions often have
differing levels of power, and thus differing capacities to influence institutional functioning
and resource allocation in line with their interests. To this extent, the ultimate test of
inclusiveness needs to be anchored in the terms of inclusion, given the critical role of this
in mediating between inclusivity and the distribution of resources.
Thus, it is important to distinguish between ‘symbolic’ and ‘substantial’ forms of
inclusion when seeking to understand the distribution of holding power within ruling
coalitions and how this shapes spatial development disparities. It needs to be emphasised
that the absolute distribution of positions of state power (e.g. ministerial positions) can
understate actual inequalities in political power beause the power of patronage varies
significantly across different gvernment portfolios. As Frances Stewart has noted, ethno-
regional inequalities in the distribution of more prominent positions within ruling
coalitions often ‘reflect not only a power imbalance but also lopsided possibilities of
patronage and shares in rents’ (Stewart, 2010: 142).
Despite its potential in deepening understanding of the politics of spatial inequality, the
political settlements framework is not without shortcomings. First, although this
framework places emphasis on the distribution of power, there is some evidence to suggest
that devolving substantial political power to marginalised regions is not a magic bullet to
redressing the development challenges of lagging areas. Much also depends on other
factors, including the characteristics of lagging regions, the extent of institutional capacity
in such areas for policy implementation, and the commitment and ideas of regional-level
elites towards the development of their regions. In India, for example, regional inequalities
in industrial development during 1960–1991 has been explained in terms of ‘[t]he janus-
faced character of regional elites’ and the nature of central-local dynamics more broadly
(Sinha, 2005:13). Here, whereas political and bureaucratic elites in some regional states
(notably Gujarat) attracted substantial industrial investments through strategies such as
the lobbying of central ministries, other regional elites (notably in West Bengal) resorted
to partisan confrontational strategies that eschewed bargaining with central state elites in
ways that undermined resource flows to these regions.
Second, and more broadly, the language of ‘settlement’ can be confusing, as it seems to
connote a single, clearly articulated agreement at specific moments in time. While Khan,
2010: 4) himself notes that ‘no political settlement is static’ and that ‘all settlements are
continuously evolving’, his definition of a political settlement as ‘an interdependent
combination of a structure of power and institutions … that is mutually ‘compatible’ and
also ‘sustainable’ in terms of economic and political viability’ (p.20) seems to point to a
Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Int. Dev. 29, 386–403 (2017)
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392 A.-G. Abdulai
sort of an equilibrium arrangement. Here, however, I follow those who have emphasised
the dynamic nature of political settlements that are constantly subject to renegotiation
and contestation (Parks & Cole, 2010; Laws, 2012). As Laws and Leftwich (2014: 1)
explain, although the process of establishing political settlements may involve specific
one-off events like elite pacts, such events ‘are not in themselves political settlements,
because political settlements are continuous, dynamic and change over time’.
4 INVESTIGATING THE POLITICS OF SPATIAL INEQUALITY: SOME
METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS
The political settlement framework suggests that an investigation of the politics of spatial
inequality requires an examination of the spatial/regional distribution of holding power;
the distribution of public resources, and the extent to which resource allocation patterns
are driven by inter-elite power relations in society. In other words, this framework suggests
that the clientelist character of political settlements in all developing countries (Khan,
2010), the dominance of particular regions in influential positions in government leads
to policy outcomes that advance the interest of such regions at the expense of others and
thereby reinforcing historical inequalities; and that (2) one way of testing these
relationships is to examine patterns of development expenditures across different ethno-
regional groups, given that resource allocation decisions are generally taken by senior
public officials. To this extent, the spatial distribution of cabinet ministers and permanent
secretary positions represents one of the most significant sources of ‘holding power’ in
society; whether regional elites are able to hold out in conflict with other elites with regards
to the spatial allocation of development projects depend on their ‘bargaining chips’ within
ruling coalitions which is in tend shaped by the extent and terms of their inclusion.
In most developing countries where formal rules-based norms have yet to displace
personalised elite bargaining as the main form of political exchange, resource allocation
patterns often tend to be driven more by the formal and informal distribution of power
rather than according to a rational bureaucratic-logic (e.g. need-based allocation criteria).
Particularly in countries characterised by serious resource scarcity, as in Africa, political
actors frequently bargain over the allocation of resources in order to secure their
consumption under conditions of economic scarcity. Therefore, the questions of who is
represented within ruling coalitions and under what terms has important implications on
variations in the regional patterns of public resource distribution, and hence the spatial
patterns of development.
This analysis also suggests that it is important to go beyond the quantitative distribution
of positions of state power to an analysis of the quality of inclusion. This can be done by
paying particular attention to the distribution of the more consequential positions in
government—what Langer (2005) calls the ‘inner core’ of political power. The concept
of ‘inner core of power’ is important because it helps us to see whether the inclusion of
marginalised regions also extends to the positions of real power and influence. Here, I
propose a three-way strategy for identifying the ‘inner core’ positions of power within
ruling coalitions. First, following Lindemann (2011a, 2011b), one way is to conduct as
many key informant interviews as possible with those who were in government at any
given moment in time. Second, indicators such as the share of the national budget
commanded by different ministries, and the extent of rents associated with different
government institutions (e.g. ministries responsible for extractive industries) can be used
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The Politics of Spatial Inequality 393
as proxies in determining the most crucial government ministries in different countries. A
third useful strategy is to focus on obviously powerful positions such as the
President/Prime Minister, Vice President, key positions within the state bureaucracy
(e.g. permanent secretaries) and highly recognised ministerial positions. While such
ministries will vary across countries, they would most likely include Ministers responsible
for Finance, Defence/Security, Foreign Affairs, Agriculture, Roads and Transport, Energy,
Education and Health. These ministerial positions generally fall within the category of
what have been considered as the ‘inner core’ of power in countries such as Cote d’Ivoire
(Langer, 2005), Nigeria (Mustapha, 2006, 2009), Zambia (Lindemann, 2011a), Uganda
(Lindemann, 2011b), Kenya (Stewart, 2010) and Ghana (Abdulai, 2014).
This said, it is important to add that the question of who actually comprises the ‘inner
core of power’ in any political regime, and how such actors can be identified presents
significant challenges in part because the influence wielded by individuals in government
can be shaped by factors other than the formal authority attached to their positions of
power, in as much as certain party financiers who may not necessarily be part of the ruling
elite can be very influential behind the scenes in shaping resource allocation decisions. One
useful contribution in this regard relates Carl LeVan’s (2015) recent efforts to
operationalise the concept of ‘veto players’, defined as ‘political actors operating in both
formal and informal political settings with the leverage to block policy change and extract
concessions’ (p.3). The idea of a veto player has some similarities with Khan’s notion of
holding power because if holding power is the power to ‘hold out’ in a conflict, then
groups with a lot of holding power are veto players. LeVan moves beyond a
conceptualisation of power as arising from institutional arrangements to incorporate
informal social power. He operationalises veto players as having ‘(1) a motive for
challenging policy (2) a mechanism for coordinating common interests and reducing
information costs if they are collective, and (3) they prevailed on at least one major policy
issue [sic]’ (p.55). Applying this definition, he identifies institutional, partisan, factional
and regional veto players, with the set of veto players shifting over time.
Another methodological challenge relates to the issue of establishing causality between
the regional distribution of ‘holding power’ on the one hand and the regional allocation
of resources on the other. One way of doing this is to interrogate various alternative
(and feasible) explanations beyond interpreting the observed expenditure patterns on the
basis of politics and power relations. This is one key strategy in making causal inferences
in qualitative research, whereby a researcher tries to identify a wide range of alternative
explanations that would threaten the proposed explanation and then search for ‘clues’ as
to whether these processes were actually operating in a given case (Maxwell, 2004). The
ability of the researcher to rule out other feasible explanations means that ‘the confidence
in the suggested explanation will be increased’ (Bennett & Elman, 2006: 460). Maxwell
(2004: 257) notes that ‘the main challenge in using this strategy in qualitative research is
coming up with the most important alternative explanations’ and then specifying in enough
detail that such ‘rival hypotheses’ cannot be taken as the causal mechanisms of the observed
social phenomenon. Arguably however, for research seeking to establish a causal linkage
between the spatial patterns of political representation and resource sharing, there can be
no better alternative explanation than the ones offered by those who have been directly
involved in the formulation and implementation of the policies and programmes concerned.
This suggests the need researchers to explore not only the alternative explanations they
deem feasible, but also those offered by the policymakers involved in the formulation
and implementation of programmes under investigation through informant interviews.
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394 A.-G. Abdulai
Second, in cases where it is feasible to obtain disaggregated expenditure data on both
budgetary allocations and actual spending for any given year(s), another approach to
establishing causality (or at least a strong correlation) could be a comparison of the two.
This is to understand the patterns of deviations between expected and actual expenditures
by location, which can then be compared to the spatial distribution of power among elites.
This is arguably an important way of establishing the influence of political representation
and other forms of politics on public spending, not least as budgetary allocations and actual
expenditures in developing countries are widely acknowledged to be shaped by formal
rules and informal practices respectively (DFID, 2007). Thus, the budgetary processes of
Malawi and Ghana have been respectively characterised as a ‘theatre’ (Rakner et al.,
2004) and ‘a ritualised façade’ (Killick, 2005: 2), not least as powerful government
‘ministers and high officials are able to set aside what the budget says and dispose of public
monies according to quite other decision processes’ (Ibid.: 3). Similarly in Tanzania,
although politicians and public bureaucrats typically include all districts in allocating
annual budgetary resources, it is the political and bureaucratic elites that make the de facto
decisions about actual allocations (Therkildsen, 2008). Thus, an inter-regional comparison
of budgetary allocations and actual spending can give us a sense of the impact of the spatial
distribution of political power on the spatial patterns of actual resource allocation. If the
observed deviations arise from other factors such as funding shortfalls, for example,
we would expect the pattern of shortfalls to be fairly uniform across regions. However,
if those with limited access to the power structures of the state are also those that frequently
experience high levels of shortfalls in their actual allocated sums vis-à-vis their budgetary
shares, then we could reasonably attribute this to power relations and the vested interests of
more influential political and bureaucratic elites.
Third, process tracing can be employed to explore the politics of the observed patterns
of public spending. Process tracing is a method of causal analysis that ‘attempts to identify
the intervening causal process—the causal chain and causal mechanism—between an
independent variable (cause) and the outcome of the dependent variable’ (George &
Bennet, 2005: 206). In this approach, causation is ‘thought of as a process involving the
mechanisms and capacities that lead from a cause to an effect’ (Bennett & Elman, 2006:
457; Collier, 2011).
5 THE POLITICS OF REGIONAL INEQUALITY IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
This section discusses how a complex politics of exclusion and inclusion has shaped
spatial development disparities in sub-Saharan Africa. There is broad consensus that
colonialism laid the foundation to regional inequalities in many African countriess
(Osaghae, 2006). As part of a deliberate divide and rule strategy which sustained colonial
rule, colonial powers systematically privileged certain ethnic groups over others (Chabal,
1992:131), especially with regards to the provision of infrastructure and educational
opportunities. For example, the Germans clearly favoured the Ewe in Togo, the English
the Baganda in Uganda, while Belgian colonial administrators favoured the Tutsi in
Rwanda and Burundi, and the Lulua in Congo (Alwy & Schech, 2004). Importantly,
because ethnic groups often correlate well with administrative regions in Africa (Groth
& Wade, 1984:14), the patterns of inequalities created by these policies assumed
ethno-regional dimensions. Historical accounts of the roots of the contemporary
north–south inequalities in countries such as Plange (1984), Uganda (Mamdani, 1983)
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The Politics of Spatial Inequality 395
and Nigeria (Kohli, 2004) highlight how the British colonial administration discouraged
the production of cash crops in the north—a decision aimed at designating these areas
and their inhabitants as a source of cheap labour.
The most consequential of all colonial policies that impacted on the construction of
postcolonial African states and subsequent patterns of spatial inequalities was in the area
of education (Graham, 1966). As part of the divide-and-rule strategies, colonial
administrators selectively privileged certain ethno-regional groups in the provision of
education. In Nigeria, this implied that as late as 1940, the northern part, which was largely
excluded from colonial educational opportunities, typically remained ‘without an English-
speaking middle class’ (Kohli, 2004:313). These discriminatory educational policies had
significant implications on the question of who was to dominate the state in the immediate
postcolonial period (van de Walle, 2003). As Osaghae (2006: 9) aptly put it, by selectively
privileging certain groups in the provision of education, ‘the various colonial authorities
ensured that the transfer of power at independence preserved the captive ruling classes that
had been nurtured under colonialism’ (Osaghae, 2006: 9).
These discriminatory policies also meant that the colonial enterprise bequeathed a
legacy of high social fragmentations in Africa which, as Chabal (1992: 131) notes, was
to prove ‘politically consequential for the post-colonial order’. The newly independent
states were in most cases dominated by a few ethno-regional groups and therefore
necessitated counter-mobilisation by members of the ‘excluded’ groups. Rothchild and
Olorunsola (1983) classifies such counter mobilisation efforts into low-intensity demands
for distributional benefits to high-intensity demands for separate statehood which
threatened the very existence of the state itself. Thus, the newly independent African ‘state
came to be seen as an arena of struggle between different groups vying for control over its
resources’ (Azarya, 1988:4). How then did the new ruling elites respond to such demands,
and why has the attainment of political independence in sub-Saharan Africa failed to alter
the patterns of regional disparities created by colonial rule?
One important feature of post-colonial African politics has been the incorporation of
elites from different ethno-regional groups into ruling coalitions (Chazan, 1988:129).
Rothchild and Foley (1988) draw attention to how ruling elites across Africa ‘responded
rather similarly to the overriding need to include ethnoregional intermediaries in the ruling
coalition’ (p.241), often by combining the use of formal rules and informal practices aimed
at ensuring the ethno-regional representativeness of their cabinets. But what has been the
impact of the politics of inclusive coalitions on spatial inequality in postcolonial Africa?
There is broad agreement that the overriding need for the formations of broad-based
ethno-regional coalitions was essentially a means by dominant elites in co-opting potential
rivals so as to foster inter-elite cooperation and sustain their fragile hold on state power
(Jackson & Rosberg, 1982:19; van de Walle, 2003). This is what has been variously
termed in the Africanist literature as the ‘reciprocal assimilation of elites’ (Bayart,
1993:252), the ‘fusion of elites’ (Sklar, 1979:537; Lonsdale, 1981:153) or the ‘hegemonial
exchange’ among elites, whereby ‘the dominant political elite… exchanges participation
and distributable resources for local support and compliance with its regulations’
(Rothchild, 1985:73). In such arrangements, ‘[p]aronage politics provided a material basis
of consensus and control within ruling coalitions, oiling and structuring the processes by
which regimes coalesced into economically dominant social strata’ (Boone, 1994:127).
Several Africanists have attributed this form of politics to the ‘soft’ nature of the
postcolonial state in Africa, implying that because the new ruling elites lacked the power
to impose their decisions on the various ethno-regional factions that challenged their
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authority, they resorted to incorporating potential ethno-regional challengers into ruling
coalitions so as to ‘maintain the political system by means of co-optation’ (Rothchild,
1985:79). Such observations strongly echo North et al.’s (2009) recent arguments that
the establishment of stable political settlements in developing societies requires the
formation of a ‘dominant coalition’ among elites, which limits access to economic rents
to members and thereby creates incentives for elites to co-operate among themselves rather
than fight.
However, there are reasons to suggest that the underlying incentive for the ‘fusion of
elites’ in postcolonial Africa has not been as conducive for enhancing balanced regional
development as it might have been for the maintenance of ‘political coalitions/settlements’.
In particular, the underlying motives for elite inclusivity implied that elites from
marginalised regions were often included on inequitable terms in ways that undermined
their capacity to influence resource allocation decisions and policy agenda more broadly.
This took the forms of under-representing such regions vis-à-vis their population shares,
and the tendency of dominant elites to ‘skew high level appointments’ towards their
ethno-regional groups in ways that made ‘the cabinet and bureaucracy more reflective of
certain ethnic and class interests than of others’ (Rothchild & Foley, 1988:233).
These differential patterns of political inclusion are critical for understanding the
persistence of the ethno-regional disparities created by colonial policies. As Rothchild
and Foley (1988: 252) have noted, ‘For a group leader to be left out of the inner circle
of decisionmakers is to be ineffective in championing the claims of his her constituents’.
Elsewhere, Rothchild (1984) examined the resource allocation practices of a wide range
of African countries in order to see if the distribution of state investments favoured
relatively disadvantaged regions. His findings drew attention to how various dominant
elites took ‘advantage of their positions of power… to skew distributive patterns in favour
of a relatively advantaged subregion’ (p.167), reinforcing historical inequalities. In his
study on ‘The Institutional Origins of Inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa’, van de Walle
(2003) similarly highlights the ways in which dominant elites, who were often from the
ethno-regional groups favoured by colonial policies, used political power to reinforce their
initial socio-economic advantages after independence, concluding that ‘Insofar as political
power has been used to gain economic advantages during the postcolonial era, inequality
has little changed in the past 40 years’.
In sum, it would seem that dominant ruling elites often co-opted enough ethno-regional
spokespersons into ruling coalitions order to maintain regime stability, whilst
monopolising real political power in ways that undermined resource flows towards
historically marginalised areas. Thus, while the symbolic inclusion of elites from various
ethno-regional groups helped legitimised ruling coalitions, the differential terms of
inclusion ensured that public resources were distributed in ways that made it difficult for
the relatively disadvantaged sub-regions to catch up. In this respect, the differential terms
of inclusion for marginalised regions not only limited their influence over resource
distribution, but also contributed in hurting their interests through a legitimation of the very
structures that underpinned their marginalisation.
One country whose experiences illustrate the above observations is Uganda, where
Museveni has been purportedly implementing an all-inclusive coalition government for
three decades now. Here, Lindemann (2011a) has analysed the distribution of government
positions among different ethno-regional groups for the period 1986–2008, with
appointments broken down into three different categories: Cabinet, Deputy Ministers
and the ‘inner core’ of political power. His findings show that the distribution of political,
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The Politics of Spatial Inequality 397
economic and military power have historically been heavily biassed in favour of ethnic
groups from the south-western parts of Uganda, especially in the more consequential
positions in the ‘inner core’ of power. In contrast, elites from the historically
underdeveloped Northern region were often assigned the most marginal positions in ways
that undermined the development prospects of the region. It is in light of this that some
analysts explain Uganda’s persistent north–south inequalities in terms of the north’s
‘‘adverse incorporation’ into the politics of state formation and capitalist development in
Uganda over a prolonged period of time’ (Golooba-Mutebi & Hickey, 2010: 1223).
Such observations closely resonate with the experience of Côte d’Ivoire, a country also
characterised by a serious socio-economic north-south divide. Although Côte d’Ivoire’s
relative political stability during her first two decades of independence has frequently been
attributed to President Houphouët-Boigny’s system of ‘ethnic quotas’ which ensured a
‘fairly inclusive’ government (Stewart, 2010:149), detailed analyses reveal a more
nuanced picture. Langer (2005) has analysed data on the level of representation of various
ethno-regional groups in government vis-à-vis their demographic sizes for the period
1980–2003. His analysis paid particular attention to the Baoulé—the largest sub-group
of the Akan and the ethnic group of both President Houphouët-Boigny and his successor,
Konan Bédié. Although his findings point to what one could refer to as an all-inclusive
government, as no major ethnic group was fully excluded, his data also nevertheless
pointed to a ‘significant over-representation of the Akans’.
Moreover, in order to access whether the inclusion of the various ethnic groups could be
said to have translated into a more equal voice or decision-making powers, he presented
data on the ethno-regional distribution of a set of key political positions—what he also
termed ‘the inner circle of political power’. The results of this exercise showed that the
over-representation of the Akan and Baoulé was even ‘more pronounced’ in these key
political positions, leading to the conclusion that ‘Houphouët-Boigny assigned the
government positions of lesser importance to other ethnic groups’ (Langer, 2005:9)—a
clear form of political adverse incorporation. Moreover, Langer’s analysis points to a close
association between this skewed distribution of real political power and the ethno-regional
patterns of well-being. Analysing DHS data for the 1990s, he showed that both the Akan as
a whole and Baoulé in particular improved their relative socio-economic position
considerably during 1994–1998, such that the ‘Akan’s relative socio-economic prosperity
was 40 per cent higher than Côte d’Ivoire’s average’ (Langer, 2005:7). Brockerhoff and
Hewitt’s (2000) survey data pointed to a similar trend.
Ghana has also been long confronted with a north–south developmental divide, with the
north (comprising the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions) lagging far behind
since colonial times. Indeed, there is a sense that the over 20 years of rapid economic
development in Ghana ‘has done nothing to reduce the historical North–South divide in
standards of living’ (World Bank, 2011: 28), and so ‘the development gap has increased
between the south and north’ (Al-Hassan & Diao, 2007). Scholars have frequently
explained this problem in terms of certain innate characteristics of the north, iincluding
the region’s fewer production potentials associated with its d ‘bad geography’ and
northerners’ proclivity for violence (see Harsch, 2008; Lall et al., 2009). However, a series
of more recent studies have shown that a key factor that explains the persistent north–south
developmental disparities in contemporary Ghana has been the continuous exclusion of the
historically poorer northern regions from a fair share of public spending; and that the
socio-economic marginalisation of these regions has been underpinned principally by a
weaker influence of northern elites on resource allocation decisions within a political
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398 A.-G. Abdulai
environment that is driven by patron-client relations (Abdulai & Hiceky, 2016; Abdulai &
Hulme, 2015; Abdulai, 2014). This problem reflects a longer-term trajectory over the post-
colonial period, whereby ‘[w]henever the North was represented in the national
government, it was always as a decidedly junior partner’ (Ladouceur, 1979: 268) in ways
that undermined resource flows to the region.
Abdulai and Hulme (2015) illustrate this argument through a case study of Ghana’s
HIPC Fund which was established as part of the PRSP process. Despite a high level of
government rhetoric of utilising HIPC debt relief to reduce regional inequalities through
the provision of extra per capita expenditure for the three northern .poorer regions, they
showed that the actual distribution of HIPC resources short-changed the north. Their
analyses clearly revealed that it was the relatively prosperous Southern regions that
actually enjoyed the highest per capita HIPC spending during 2002–2005, average per
capita HIPC expenditures in the north was US$ 0.8 compared to US$ 3.4 in the south.
Southern-based dominant political elites agreed to policies of reducing regional inequality
in order to have access to aid funding but, once approved, these funds were allocated on
quite different criteria in ways that marginalised the poorest north. With the weaker
representation of northern politicians in the governing coalition and their corresponding
lack of ‘agenda-setting powers’, their vehement protests against the distributional pattern
went unheeded. Poorer citizens in the north therefore tend to suffer from socio-economic
exclusion because their political representatives were not part of the ‘inner circle of
political decision makers’. A similar process is reflected in the distribution of resources
provided under the $547 million Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) on agricultural
modernisation which fully excluded the two historically poorest regions in the north of
Ghana (Abdulai, 2016).
Similar observations have been made in Kenya where ‘access to political power by the
president’s home determines the fortunes of that province and the resultant exclusion of
other provinces’ (Muhula, 2009:93). Here, ‘the region that controls political power… also
controls the direction and magnitude of economic and political resources of the state’
(Muhula, 2009:86). Analysis of the ethno-regional composition of governmental coalitions
in postcolonial Kenya confirm that both the Kenyatta (1963–1978) and Moi (1978–2002)
regimes disproportionately favoured their respective ethno-regional groups (i.e. Central
and Rift Valley Provinces, respectively). This was especially so with regards to the
distribution of the upper echelons of government positions in the Cabinet, the Military,
Diplomacy and Public Service (Nellis, 1974:14–15; Rothchild, 1969:699–701), a trend
that continues to this date (see Stewart, 2010). What is of particular interest has been the
strong correlation between the spatial distribution of government resources and patterns
of access to political power in postcolonial Kenya. Under Kenyatta’s rule in 1979, whereas
the Central Province had only 766 people per hospital bed, ‘politically excluded areas like
Nyanza, Western and North Eastern Provinces had an average of over 1000 peoples per
bed’ (Muhula, 2009:95). Unsurprisingly, by the 1980s, child mortality levels among
President Kenyatta’s ethnic group were on par with those of many industrialised countries
(Brockerhoff & Hewitt, 2000:34). Data for 1969 and 1970 point to similar patterns with
regards to access to educational facilities and government expenditures on housing
(Rothchild, 1984; Alwy & Schech, 2004).
The Moi era brought similar advantages to the Rift Valley Province, whose share of
development expenditures for road construction remained disproportionately high during
each year between 1979 and 1988 (Barkan & Chege, 1989:449), with similar advantages
conferred on this Province in the area of Health (Ibid). It is not surprising, therefore, that
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The Politics of Spatial Inequality 399
by the end of the Moi administration in 2002, Rift Valley had about 6000 people per health
facility, the least of any Province in Kenya (Muhula, 2009:95). Variations in child survival
followed a similar trend, whereby children of the ethnic group of President Moi, the
Kalenjin, were 50 per cent less likely to die before age five than others (Brockerhoff &
Hewitt, 2000:22). In sum, the historical evidence is clear that ‘the distribution of public
goods such as education facilities, health, water and physical infrastructure in Kenya have
tended to follow patterns of access to political power’ (World Bank, 2009b: 9).
6 CONCLUSION AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS
Why do spatial inequalities arise and persist, and how might this problem be redressed in
developing countries? Answers to these questions have typically focused on techno-
economic factors such as geography and institutions, while the role of politics and power
relations remains neglected. Consequently, much of current policy recommendations
aimed at redressing spatial development disparities often tend focus on ‘what’ policies
and institutions are required to overcome spatial inequalities (see Kanbur & Venables,
2005; World Bank, 2009a), but with little understanding of the specific conditions under
which such policies and institutions are likely to be adopted and implemented on a
sustained basis.
This article has argued that the possibilities of overcoming spatial/regional inequalities
depend substantially on the way political power is distributed among regional elites and
how this influences the distribution of public resources. Given the problem of resource
scarcity in developing societies, various ethno-regional groups seek access to influential
positions in government primarily as a means of presenting group interests in the
decision-making process. Thus, developing countries are typically under the control of a
coalition of elite factions, which compete amongst themselves for access to resources
and political power. In such contexts, comprehensive policies that skew benefits towards
marginalised regions are more likely to be implemented on a sustained basis when elites
who directly represent the interest of those segments of the population have substantial
influence over resource allocation decisions. Strategies that aim to bridge interregional
development gaps should therefore also consider ways of shifting interregional power
relations in ways that ensure more advantageous inclusion of lagging regions within ruling
coalitions. Nevertheless, the devolution of substantial authority to disadvantaged regions is
only a necessary but not a sufficient condition for overcoming spatial development
disparities. As the evidence here suggest, much also depends on a wide range of other
factors, including the characteristics of lagging regions, the extent of institutional capacity
in such areas for policy implementation, and the commitment and ideas of regional-level
elites towards the development of their regions.
This argument reinforces recent research that highlights the ‘inherently political’ nature
of spatial inequality and the difficulty of achieving spatially inclusive development without
the inclusion of elites from poorer regions within ruling coalitions (e.g. United Nations
Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), 2010: 82). However, the analysis
here goes further to emphasise that whereas the political inclusion of lagging regions
matters, it is the terms of their inclusion that are especially critical in shaping their access
to vital state resources and enhancing prospects for overcoming spatial development
disparities.
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400 A.-G. Abdulai
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