If there is a common thread linking the various articles in this journal, it is identifying the central role which imperialism continues to play in stultifying African development. Imperialism as a representation of the monopoly stage of capitalist development is in a constant state of flux, reflecting the current state of the globalisation of capital. Despite this need to theorise imperialism in its metamorphic form, 'hardly anybody talks about imperialism any more'. It is not enough to describe and analyse how les damnes de la terre are coping with the destructive effects of IMF and World Bank sponsored structural adjustment programmes which established the 1980s as Africa's lost decade, and the 1990s as the decade of Africa's marginalisation. We must also locate and theorise the processes within the context of contemporary imperialism.
Imperialism continues to redefine itself.
First, as Tom Mayer has argued, the rising powers usually champion laissez faire and unfettered economic processes, hoping that this will work to their advantage in the international markets. By contrast, the declining powers tend to be more pessimistic about uncontrolled laissez fairs , and are more willing to protect economic interests via political intervention. This is borne out in the recent phoney trade wars between the United States and Japan, as well as the United States and the European Union. Second, this divide could trigger off rapid interventionist response to political upheaval by the military hegemonic power, with the hope that the cost for such adventurous projects will be met by the other imperialist powers. Today through the debt crisis, capital is drained from the periphery to the centre through 'the international non-oppressive state apparatuses', the IMF and World Bank.