{"id":59681,"date":"2026-10-08T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/?p=59681"},"modified":"2026-10-08T14:59:20","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T17:59:20","slug":"the-search-for-a-capable-state-in-africa-and-latin-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/the-search-for-a-capable-state-in-africa-and-latin-america\/","title":{"rendered":"The search for a capable state in Africa and Latin America"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Across much of Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), a widening gap is emerging between what citizens expect from the state and what governments have been able to deliver. Particularly among younger generations, frustration over unemployment, corruption, insecurity, and inadequate public services is increasingly eroding trust in political elites. In Africa, the latest Afrobarometer data<\/a> show that 59% of citizens consider the economic conditions in their countries to be poor, while 58% believe that their countries are heading in the wrong direction. Unemployment and economic management rank among the most urgent priorities. The situation is similar in LAC, where, according to Latinobar\u00f3metro, <\/a>only 45% of young people<\/a> are satisfied with the way democracy is functioning, while nearly 40% distrust their governments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These trends have reignited a broader debate about what type of state organization can drive structural transformation. Citizens are increasingly demanding states that are not only capable of solving public problems, but also of driving productive transformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This growing dissatisfaction with state performance cannot simply be attributed to economic stagnation, since many countries in both regions have recorded relatively solid growth in recent years. However, for two regions with enormous demographic and economic potential, this level of performance remains below their weight. More importantly, this growth has not consistently translated into structural transformation. Across much of both regions, economies continue to struggle to create productive employment, diversify beyond commodities, develop industrial capacity, and build the infrastructure and technological capabilities needed to increase productivity. The question, therefore, is not whether Africa and LAC can continue to grow, but whether they can change the structure of that growth, turning economic expansion into productive transformation and an improved standard of living for their large and rapidly growing populations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is where the question of state capacity becomes crucial. The fact that growth has not translated into structural transformation suggests that states must do more than solve immediate public problems: they must also be capable of coordinating the economic actors and processes through which such transformation can take place. This more demanding role for the state is reflected in the priorities and concerns expressed by citizens in both regions, as captured by Afrobarometer and Latinobar\u00f3metro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Africa, these expectations are closely linked to a broader reassessment of the democratic model<\/a>, amid growing debate over whether existing democratic systems can ensure accountable governance and respond effectively to citizens\u2019 socioeconomic needs. These growing doubts about existing democratic systems are creating political space for disruptive leaders who promise to break with established political orders and build stronger and more effective states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Sahel<\/a>, this demand has been articulated through the language of economic sovereignty, self-reliance, and resistance to external influence, particularly that of France, the former colonial power. Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger are clear examples. In many other countries, such as Senegal, Guinea, and South Sudan<\/a>, political discourse is increasingly emphasizing greater national control over the country\u2019s assets in order to increase domestic value added and ensure that resource wealth contributes more directly to national development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, turning these ambitions into reality requires more than political will. Economic sovereignty also depends on strong institutions capable of translating greater control over national assets into productive investment, industrial development, and broad-based prosperity. Without this institutional capacity, resource nationalism risks becoming a demagogic policy of ownership and control rather than a strategy for building productive economies. The search for a capable state, however, is not limited to countries experiencing political disruption or pursuing resource nationalism. Morocco is a particularly illustrative example. Its current political debate points to the need for a state capable of ensuring that the benefits of development are distributed equitably throughout the country. The emphasis on territorial equity<\/a> is especially important, since state capacity is ultimately tested not only by the quality of institutions at the center, but also by their ability to provide infrastructure, services, economic opportunities, and public investment in territories with different levels of development. In this sense, capacity goes beyond the design of effective policies and encompasses the ability to implement them consistently and turn policy intent into outcomes that citizens and businesses can actually experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LAC has expressed the same demand for a more capable state through another turn of its political pendulum<\/a>. The recent shift to the right<\/a> in many countries reflects not only an ideological shift, but also growing frustration with governments that have failed to provide security, economic opportunities, and tangible improvements in people\u2019s lives. Governments emerging from this shift are applying, to varying degrees, fiscal discipline, regulatory stability, macroeconomic stabilization programs, and measures aimed at strengthening investor confidence. Argentina<\/a> and El Salvador<\/a> are among the clearest examples, with sustained efforts to restore stability and create favorable conditions for investment and productive expansion. However, although these reforms have produced important improvements in macroeconomic management and the investment environment, it remains unclear whether they will translate into sustained structural transformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the political trajectories of Africa and LAC differ, they are increasingly converging around the demand for a state capable of demonstrating that it works. Meeting this demand, however, is unlikely to require resurrecting the old interventionist state. Both regions have experienced periods of state-led development that failed to generate structural transformation. These experiences have left a lasting political lesson: a more interventionist state is not necessarily a more capable state. What is needed instead is a state that acts as an agile coordinator of economic actors, aligns them around common goals, and creates the conditions for their activities to grow, expand, and generate broader economic transformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The capable state lies at the intersection of dirigisme<\/em> and technocracy. It does not seek to control economic activity, but rather to shape the conditions under which businesses can emerge, grow, and compete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both Africa and LAC have moved, albeit unevenly, toward this model, but neither region has fully achieved it. Their experiences show that achieving economic transformation and improving living conditions for a broader share of the population requires more than political changes, greater control over strategic assets, or ambitious economic reforms. It also requires institutions capable of coordinating economic actors and mobilizing the knowledge, financing, skills, and technological capabilities needed to turn opportunities into economic outcomes. Therefore, the ultimate test of this emerging model of state action will not be how much governments control, but what they enable: institutions that act not as substitutes for the private sector, but as strategic counterparts, enabling the emergence of an ecosystem of economic warriors<\/a> that turns economic potential into productive capacity, productive capacity into competitive firms, and competitive firms into broadly shared prosperity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa and Latin America share common challenges: building capable states that can turn economic growth into jobs and more broadly shared prosperity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":895,"featured_media":59633,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16933,16982],"tags":[15635],"gps":[],"class_list":["post-59681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-africa-en","category-sur-global-en","tag-debates"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/895"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59681"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59686,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59681\/revisions\/59686"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59681"},{"taxonomy":"gps","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/gps?post=59681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}