State-Society Relations in an International Context
Author(s)
Kaiser, Paul J.
Abstract
Theoretical approaches that address economic, political and social disparities in Africa have come and gone since independence without effectively dealing with the complexities of development. In many cases, this has occurred because existing theoretical approaches have not explicitly accommodated the multi-level dimensions of these disparities, instead focusing predominantly on local, national or international factors. Recently, there has been scholarly interest in the relationship between the state and civil society in Africa. While this approach represents a useful contribution to the study of African development since it systematically includes two levels of analysis, there is also a need to accommodate the international context of these relations. In this article, I argue that current conceptions of state/society relations should be refined to include all three levels of analysis. After a brief overview of research on state/society relations and the multinational corporation in Africa, a case study of health-care initiatives in Tanzania will be presented that illustrates the relevance of multi-level analysis to the study of civil society.
