Post-COVID world: The controls of moulding states

Abstract

Crises force us to stop and think. And COVID-19 should. This paper examines the prospect of deep reform of national planning in the young post-colonial states (the moulding states). The paper is a contrasted case study of Kenya and Uganda. The attempt at generalisation across moulding states draws on a shared history of state formation. Two trunks define that history – post-independence conflicts and structural adjustment programme (SAP). A contrast between the two countries teases out a tension, which tension the paper uses to illuminate the two policy spaces. The analytical frame draws on control theory. The paper argues that neither country is likely to see structural reform of their national planning. Yet, the epistemological thrust of the paper is not that deduction but questions arising along with the scrutiny of the policy spaces. Those questions should provoke Africa and more broadly, the emerging economies