Economic and political dynamics of Africa's emerging middle class

Economic and political dynamics of Africa's emerging middle class

Robust economic growth in much of sub-Saharan Africa over the last decade is largely believed to have coincided with an expanding middle class. According to some estimates, the region now has 200 million more members of the middle class than it did in the 1980s. Yet, notwithstanding legions of journalistic accounts and private sector reports extolling the benefits of Africa’s rising middle class, there has been thus far very little rigorous scholarship on the behaviors and impact of this class on the political economy of Africa’s development.