Sub-Saharan Africa in the world order of neoliberal globalization: history, ideational forces and epistemic power

Abstract

The article analyses the process by which the Sub-Saharan region has become part of the new neoliberal global order. This is analysed with social theories of the international, within an analytical balance between the politico-economic dimensions and the cultural-ideational dimensions. From a world-systems perspective focused on hierarchical and hegemonic international relations it is observed how the Sub-Saharan region has continued to be within clear structural dependence relations both socioeconomic and cultural-ideational. From a world society perspective an ambivalent development is depicted in the region, featured with difficulties in constructing nation-states that can be formally internationally homologated, and limited regional integration and empowerment processes. Moreover, the glocal epistemic relations of definitional power are discussed, in relation to global knowledge dynamics and the role of public higher education. There are two main conclusions: a) region’s increasingly formal international homologation in the neoliberal global order has not modified region’s structural economic and political dependence, which is based in a cultural-ideational dependence relative to its epistemic and definitional power; and b) as democratization slowly advances there are actual and potential dynamics of generation of own and alternative epistemes, which could enable possibilities for a glocal contestation to a the hegemonic neoliberal model.