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The Political Economy of Africa's Emergent Middle Class: Retrospect and Prospects
Author(s) -
Resnick Danielle
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of international development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.533
H-Index - 66
eISSN - 1099-1328
pISSN - 0954-1748
DOI - 10.1002/jid.3110
Subject(s) - middle class , politics , transformative learning , class (philosophy) , perspective (graphical) , corporate governance , political science , sociology , order (exchange) , political economy , development economics , epistemology , economics , law , management , pedagogy , philosophy , finance , artificial intelligence , computer science
This special issue introduction provides a historical perspective in order to contextualize the political economy of Africa's emergent middle class. In doing so, three overarching research questions are discussed to better understand the middle class' transformative potential. First, who constitute Africa's middle class and how has this concept changed over time? Second, what dynamics explain the growth of this group? Third, what are the implications of the middle class for good governance and pro‐poor policies? The contributions of each of the articles in the special issue to answering these specific questions for Africa's contemporary middle class are then briefly discussed. © 2015 The Authors. Journal of International Development published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.