Valiani, Salimah2023-11-282023-11-282023-10Valiani, S. 2023, 'The debt-austerity crutch: African elite agency in the fourth (US) cycle of accumulation of historical capitalism', World Review of Political Economy, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 405-425, doi : 10.13169/worlrevipoliecon.14.3.0405.2042-891X (print)2042-8928 (online)10.13169/worlrevipoliecon.14.3.0405http://hdl.handle.net/2263/93473For decades, African governments have cited debt servicing and international credit ratings as the reasons for continued policies of austerity. It is demonstrated here that though unjust and anti-developmental, as critics of so-called structural adjustment have argued, IMF prescriptions and other capitalist structural reforms have been a success from the perspective of world elites. It is shown how, from the 1970s, rich country elites, as well as African elites, have created the conditions for Africa to become a major locus for the maintenance of liberalized financial and trade flows. Comprador bourgeois capitalism, with a new twist—the amassing of public debt and offshore transactions—is argued to be the African expression of financial expansion in Giovanni Arrighi’s fourth (US) systemic cycle of accumulation. A systemic, class-based explanation is offered for what is commonly understood as the anti-democratic nature of international financial institutions, and corruption of African leaders. The analysis provides an explanation for why, not a single African state has defaulted on external debt, as Argentina did, in 2001.en© Salimah Valiani. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY) 4.0.External debtAusterityWorld systemsFinancializationAfricaSDG-17: Partnerships for the goalsArticle