Book Talk on “Disrupted Development in the Congo” with Ben Radley
Bush House North East Wing, Strand Campus, London
Please join the Department of International Development at KCL for a book talk with Ben Radley about his new book, "Disrupted Development in the Congo: The Fragile Foundations of the African Mining Consensus"
About the book
Since the turn of the century, low-income African countries have undergone a process of mining industrialization led by transnational corporations. The process has been sustained by an African Mining Consensus uniting international financial institutions, African governments, development agencies, and various strands of the academic literature. The Consensus position is that mining industrialization can drive transformative processes of social and economic development in low-income African settings. For this, state-owned enterprises and local forms of labour-intensive mining are deemed unsuitable. The former is characterized as corrupt and mismanaged, and the latter as an inefficient, subsistence activity with links to conflict financing. The Consensus holds, instead, that mining industrialization should be led by the superior expertise and efficiency of transnational corporations.
Disrupted Development in the Congo reveals the fragile foundations on which this Consensus rests. Through an in-depth case study of mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ben Radley details how foreign corporations have been prone to mismanagement, inefficiencies, and rent-seeking, and implicated in fuelling conflict and violence. He also documents how structural impediments to the transformative effects of mining industrialization in low-income African countries occur irrespective of ownership and management structures. Based on the findings presented, Radley urges a move away from the market-led logics underpinning the Consensus. In the mining sector itself, he argues that efforts to mechanize labour-intensive forms of local mining better meet the needs of low-income African economies for rising productivity, labour absorption, and the domestic retention of the value generated by productive activity than the currently dominant but disruptive foreign corporate-led model.
About the author
Ben Radley
Ben Radley is a political economist researching mining, energy, and labour in the context of green transitions, with a regional focus on Africa and Asia-Pacific. Prior to joining the University of Bath in 2020, he held academic posts at the International Institute of Social Studies and the London School of Economics. He currently holds a Leverhulme Research Fellowship, leading a comparative study of the labour and value chain dynamics associated with renewable energy expansion in Rwanda and Papua New Guinea. He's a member of the Editorial Working Group for the Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE) and Working Group Coordinator for the International Initiative for Promoting Political Economy.
About the Interrogating Development Seminar Series
The 'Interrogating Development' seminar series is organised by the Department of International Development at King's College London. The series examines some of the most pressing issues of development facing global society today, with the authors of new books presenting cutting-edge research on a variety of topics related to development.
The talk will be followed by a wine reception. The event is open to everyone.
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